How would you improve PFL next season?

[Mmmmmmma1234]

Create a division nobody else has.

They already got women's LW

 

[ThunderL1ps]

They already got women's LW

Something that people would want to watch is what i meant.

 

[Frank23]

They need to get some cards on NBC and promote better.

 

[MMALOPEZ]

Go after bigger names.

Co-promote and fighter exchange with Rizin and Bellator.

I agree with your post TS.

CD why would Bellator co promote with PFL (a tournament company) nothing to gain from...business wise doesn’t make sense.

Also can they please find a knowledgeable play by play guy instead of Todd Harris.....

 

[chrisdiaz]

The thing that will improve PFL next season is time. They didnt have it this year and kind of rushed it. With things spread out a little more with more fighters (maybe one weight class a card with 16-18 fighters) each card will feel more important.

I loved going there live though. They did a great job and the pace of the card was amazing.

 

[leto1776]

I swear this place is a like a broken record, everything is “co promote” this, and “fighter exchange” that. I have yet to see any of these type of things be mutually beneficial for the promotions involved.


The biggest improvement PF
Can make is to look at all the bumps in the road, all the hiccups from this first season, and improve on them.a situation popped up in the tournament you hadn’t really thought of ahead of time? Well, don’t spend ten minutes looking through the rule book, killing air time. Have that stuff ready next year.

 

[sdy]

Give them a break, they already lost millions of bucks.

 

[europe1]

Honestly, what PFL needs to become a successful organization is to be financially profitable. Or at least, financially stable.

Even the UFC only bring in about 500.000-600.000 viewers on TV these days. How exactly is PFL going to top that, who only do around 125.000?

Elite XC used to do UFC-numbers, around half-a-million by event -- even though that was back in 2008. And they crashed and burned with a 40 million deficit despite that.

Any way you cut it, PFL just looks like a bad business idea. Meaning it's not maintainable.

Honestly, their best bet is probably seducing some luny billionaire who don't mind burning millions of dollars because it's his pet-hobby.

- Go after big names - The PFL needs to try their hand at securing far bigger names if they want to be successful. The biggest names this season were Shields, Brooks, and Rashid Magomedov at a very distant third. Definitely won't cut it for ratings. Go after guys like Vitor Belfort and Frank Mir for one-offs, or at least attempt to outbid the UFC for top 10 well-known talents like Mousasi and Alvarez.

One thing to consider...

PFL is basically a showcase for Ali Abdel Aziz's fighters (Dominance MMA), the most powerful manager in MMA. It gives his guys a spotlight and gives him some big income. Ali was a part-owner of WSOF -- and although he isn't officially involved in PFL due to the backlash over the conflict of interest this causes (favorable match-ups) -- he's obviously still a big monkey backstage. Therefore, PFL's focus is always going to be directed towards servicing whoever Ali has signed first that isn't in the UFC.

Also, how are they supposed to afford Alvarez and Mousasi in the first place? Remember, they get their usual salary + the Tournament prizes. That would put them even deeper in the red.

- Co-Promote - WSOF/PFL has had no problem letting fighters fight in other orgs temporarily in the past. Why not do it officially? Send one or two fighters with fan-friendly styles to RIZIN NYE and get some buzz about their own NYE event.

This is unlikely to work with casuals, which is what they need to attract in the first place.

Semis 3 rounds not that shit of 2 and the winner of the first round advancing was horrible...

States-commissions like California and Arizona have shown that they don't care about the 25-minutes max rules. They should just hold the Quarters and Semis exclusively there so that they can do 15+15 minute fights.

I felt like fans wanted to dissect the rankings, and they wanted those dramatic moments where a fighter needed to end a bout by the 2nd round or they'd be eliminated.

Unfortunately because there were so few fighters and fights per division, how you won didn't really matter. Jared Rosholt, Josh Copeland, and Jake Shields all made the playoffs despite only winning 1 decision and getting destroyed in their other bout. It took away the importance of everything you'd watch.

Yeah, you kind of need to have, say, 4 more fighters in every division for the ranking system to really become a major player.

Get on a better network for MMA like FS1 and FS2.

They're making around 100.000-150.000 viewers on NBC Sports right now. They basically exist there because NBC wants to have an alternative to the Fox-allied UFC. Would those other channels even want PFL with such abysmaly paltry figures on such a big channel?

Well, don’t spend ten minutes looking through the rule book, killing air time. Have that stuff ready next year.

To be fair, it looked like not even the Commissions knew what the hell they were doing at those events.

The minute, often harebrained differences between State-Commissions is just galling. Like Illinois rule that if a fighters gets unintentionally kicked in the groin and is unable to continue, the kicker gets the win. Or the fact that a Doctor's Stoppage loss counts as having occurred in the round that is about to start, instead of the round it happens in. This are the sort of counter-intuitive bullshit that you would assume to be a joke if you sat down and read it.

The fact that MMA is state-based instead of Federal just means that you're going to have 50-states that do whatever the fuck they want, so idiotic differences and idiosyncratic claptrap is almost unavoidable.

 

[EndlessCritic]

1: Get rid of the goofy points system.
2: Get rid of the goofy qualifying rounds, and just make it a single tournament from the beginning
3: Get rid of the goofy 2 round fights with an even goofier tiebreaker system.

 

[FKA]

Going after bigger names goes without saying.

Minor change: make the quarterfinal bouts a single round instead of two, to do away with the draws and presumably boost the pace.

Major change: Make all regular season bouts a single round to increase action and the amount of times a fighter can compete during the season. Point system would change to: Draw = 1, Decision = 3, Finish = 5.

The entire tournament could be held in one night: 1 round for quarterfinal and semifinal fights, 3 rounds for the finals. But the current format (with the 1 round QF) is okay too.

Also, with all the trade talk recently, a formal deal where the tournament winners can be traded to the UFC in exchange for veteran fighters.

HW: Arlovski
LHW: OSP
MW: Hall
WW: Cerrone
LW: Barboza
FW: Swanson

Honestly I would love for the PFL to merge with the UFC and basically become the new format for TUF. They just need a few seasons to iron out the kinks.

Dont agree with any of that

 

[skylolow]

Good Luck.

I'm not really sure what you can do. It's easy to say get bigger fighter names , but to do that and do it under the circumstances PFL wants them to fight isn't exactly easy. Maybe once in awhile they get lucky and a fighter enters free agency just at the right time and takes a crack at the PFL. Otherwise most guys of value are looking for security.

Co-promote........that is more or less fans dreams usually. Co-promotion rarely works out great. With the PFL you won't be loaning a guy for a one off fight. He could be tied up for the whole year and I'm not sure any org worth anything is willing to give up someone of value for what could be a year.

Personally, I think it is what it is. It's always going to have guys with name value in the twilight of their career and a lot of prospects. They can clean up some of the issues they had this year like applying the rule set more quickly. I read a lot of people talking about better matchups but that is almost impossible to do (ie: Lewis vs Francis should've been a classic rock em sock em and it came off as possibly the worst fight ever on a PPV). Really the only way to do it is tape delay the event by just an hour and on TV put the name value guys(draws) and the best matches that occurred before that. Any other scenario is leaving it in the hands of the MMA gods and they sure like to piss all over everyone.

 

[CDF47]

CD why would Bellator co promote with PFL (a tournament company) nothing to gain from...business wise doesn’t make sense.

Also can they please find a knowledgeable play by play guy instead of Todd Harris.....

They could loan fighters to Bellator and vice versa. PFL could have their tournament champions fight the guys Bellator sends over.

 

[GueseGuy]

I don’t even think it needs to be big names. They just need to find some crazy stand up guys that’ll put on sick fights. They need to get some Bjorn-like prospects in there. Action dudes that finish fights. Bellator had guys like Stepanyan, Brian Rogers, Brennan Ward, Shabulaev, etc. Like guys who have fun fighting styles. Gotta chill with the Howard’s, Bradley, Rosholt kinda guys. Just get some fun fighters and let’s have a crazy season. People want to watch good fights with finishes.

 

[MMALOPEZ]

They could loan fighters to Bellator and vice versa. PFL could have their tournament champions fight the guys Bellator sends over.

Not going to happen

 

[MMALOPEZ]

They could loan fighters to Bellator and vice versa. PFL could have their tournament champions fight the guys Bellator sends over.

Why would Bellator co promote with a lesser company after being the true #2 in the world?

Why would PFL pay $1 million to their champs to go and fight for another promotion?

 

[GueseGuy]

Bellator would never co promote with them. They have nothing to gain. Bellator has way deeper divisions they really don’t need to go out of their way and co promote with anyone. Especially PFL who have Bellator retreads (Brooks, Halsey, Bradley)

 

[RODNEY83]

Honestly, what PFL needs to become a successful organization is to be financially profitable. Or at least, financially stable.

Even the UFC only bring in about 500.000-600.000 viewers on TV these days. How exactly is PFL going to top that, who only do around 125.000?

Elite XC used to do UFC-numbers, around half-a-million by event -- even though that was back in 2008. And they crashed and burned with a 40 million deficit despite that.

Any way you cut it, PFL just looks like a bad business idea. Meaning it's not maintainable.

Honestly, their best bet is probably seducing some luny billionaire who don't mind burning millions of dollars because it's his pet-hobby.



One thing to consider...

PFL is basically a showcase for Ali Abdel Aziz's fighters (Dominance MMA), the most powerful manager in MMA. It gives his guys a spotlight and gives him some big income. Ali was a part-owner of WSOF -- and although he isn't officially involved in PFL due to the backlash over the conflict of interest this causes (favorable match-ups) -- he's obviously still a big monkey backstage. Therefore, PFL's focus is always going to be directed towards servicing whoever Ali has signed first that isn't in the UFC.

Also, how are they supposed to afford Alvarez and Mousasi in the first place? Remember, they get their usual salary + the Tournament prizes. That would put them even deeper in the red.



This is unlikely to work with casuals, which is what they need to attract in the first place.



States-commissions like California and Arizona have shown that they don't care about the 25-minutes max rules. They should just hold the Quarters and Semis exclusively there so that they can do 15+15 minute fights.



Yeah, you kind of need to have, say, 4 more fighters in every division for the ranking system to really become a major player.



They're making around 100.000-150.000 viewers on NBC Sports right now. They basically exist there because NBC wants to have an alternative to the Fox-allied UFC. Would those other channels even want PFL with such abysmaly paltry figures on such a big channel?



To be fair, it looked like not even the Commissions knew what the hell they were doing at those events.

The minute, often harebrained differences between State-Commissions is just galling. Like Illinois rule that if a fighters gets unintentionally kicked in the groin and is unable to continue, the kicker gets the win. Or the fact that a Doctor's Stoppage loss counts as having occurred in the round that is about to start, instead of the round it happens in. This are the sort of counter-intuitive bullshit that you would assume to be a joke if you sat down and read it.

The fact that MMA is state-based instead of Federal just means that you're going to have 50-states that do whatever the fuck they want, so idiotic differences and idiosyncratic claptrap is almost unavoidable.

Blah blah blah, FS1 and FS2 lost the UFC, which means they lost programming to sell commercial rights to in order to make money. So FS1 and FS2 would want some counter programming since they lost the UFC and that money. And with the PFL, FS1 and 2 would pay a whole lot less to bring PFL over than they ever did with the UFC. And since FS1 and 2 are no longer going to be part of FOX because of the Disney purchasing of FOX, FS1 and 2 are going to be in the market to find inexpensive ways to generate profit and the PFL would fit that model. And with PFL investors being people like Tony Robbins, Kevin Hart, the Washington Capitals owner, MGM Studios owner, and others, these are not stupid people who don't know how to make money. So getting on another network may be beneficial or even having about 4 shows on NBC would help for 2019. Whatever the PFL does, I hope their decision makers will get on a platform that will get more eyes on their organization as opposed to getting a platform like DAZN , which will draw less eyes on their organization

 

[europe1]

going to be in the market to find inexpensive ways to generate profit

Considering pretty much every major org save UFC and Pride (and maybe a something like KSW) has lost big money and gone bankrupt, investing in an MMA promotion sure isn't an inexpensive way to generate profit. In fact, it's a damn bad one, precedence being what it is. Smart people would invest elsewhere.

 

[ThunderL1ps]

They could loan fighters to Bellator and vice versa. PFL could have their tournament champions fight the guys Bellator sends over.

Aren't they still tied to the UFC? I'm out of the loop with the PFL, but I'd think if any talent was exchanged or signed after being cut by the UFC and told to go sign with WSOF/PFL it would be between these two companies and not Bellator.

 

[CDF47]

Aren't they still tied to the UFC? I'm out of the loop with the PFL, but I'd think if any talent was exchanged or signed after being cut by the UFC and told to go sign with WSOF/PFL it would be between these two companies and not Bellator.

Not sure. Their fighters have fought in Rizin in the past. Not sure if it was a fighter share though.