Professional Fighters League aims to make MMA ‘the second sport of Africa’ as fandom surges

South Africa hosted the biggest mixed martial arts (MMA) event the country has seen at the GrandWest Grand Arena in Cape Town on Saturday, 19 July.

The Professional Fighters League (PFL) had an explosive first night in Africa with both the launch of the inaugural PFL Africa event and then the PFL Champions Series following, with 13 fights during the evening.

It was a historical occasion for MMA in the country. An international fighting organisation not only hosted the biggest fighters in the world – outside the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) – but also established a local foothold to display South Africa’s best to the world.

South Africa has its own local MMA organisation, Elite Fighting Championship (EFC) Worldwide, founded and run by the Howarth brothers. It provides a stepping stone for regional athletes to bigger organisations. UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis is an example of a star. But unlike the PFL, the EFC does not have the financial power to compete and retain talent against the UFC.

One of the most distinguished women stars in MMA, England’s Dakota Ditcheva – who has an undefeated 15-0 record – competes and recently signed again for the PFL despite interest from Dana White’s UFC.

Ditcheva featured in the co-main event on Saturday in Cape Town and completely overpowered Hawaii’s Sumiko Inaba in their flyweight bout, eventually winning by judges’ decision. “That’s the best walkout I’ve ever had,” an appreciative Ditcheva said after her win. She walked out to Freed from Desire by Gala, to which the boisterous local crowd sang and danced along.

Same but different

The reason for her commitment to the PFL – and that of the rest of the ever-expanding roster – is the work of its founder, chairperson and co-owner, Donn Davis.

“Most of my life I’ve built new companies, either as an entrepreneur or an investor, and I saw a big opportunity to build, essentially, in an underserved market,” Davis said in an exclusive interview with Daily Maverick.

He explained that his ambition was to provide more “premium” content to spectators than the UFC could offer. For a long time the UFC held the monopoly over prime MMA fights – until the establishment of the PFL in 2017.

“When I looked at the fans of MMA and the fighters of MMA and the commercial partners of MMA, I thought they’re all underserved on the premium global level,” Davis said. “There are 650 million MMA fans, but the UFC just gave them 50 premium fights a year.

“Those fans on a premium level would want more. I looked at the fighters and there were hundreds of great fighters that were all scattered around the globe at regional leagues, but they didn’t have a premium global platform. And the commercial partners – a lot of them were either locked out or priced out.

“This is not a single winner-takes-all market. There’ll be one more, maybe two more big companies.”

The PFL is not a replica of the UFC, however – it has its own unique format. In the UFC, White almost exclusively decides who receives title shots and who faces whom across fight cards. The PFL, in contrast, uses a bracket system akin to college basketball in the US – or knockout formats in global sport – to determine which challenger will fight which opponent.

“I thought the product that would be very exciting would be a product that was a meritocracy,” Davis explained. “Where fighters control their destiny. Single elimination. And as a fan, I thought that would be awesome too.”

African foothold

Saturday was the first round of the heavyweight and bantamweight classes of PFL Africa. The winners will be moving on to semifinals and then eventually the final, where each weight category’s winner receives a $100,000 prize.

“One of those fighters [at the inaugural PFL Africa] is going to start on their way to be PFL African champ,” Davis said.

“They’re going to win three times this year and they’re going to hold up a belt and win $100,000.

“And then they’re going to go up to PFL Global, the world tournament. And then they’re going to win three times and they’re going to hold up a belt and they’re going to win $500,000. And in two years, somebody who nobody knows today, everyone will know two years from now.”

But why Africa? The UFC has existed since 1993 but not hosted an event on the continent. White has flirted with the idea, but no concrete plans have materialised. The reasons for this include not having an indoor venue large enough to host the showpiece event, and the ticket prices, which, when converted, are close to R1-million.

The PFL, in contrast, has now not only hosted a premium, sold-out event in South Africa, but also launched a subsidiary that looks to grow the local MMA talent.

“We’re willing to invest in Africa, and they’re not,” Davis said. “They talk about it, we do it.”

But that doesn’t mean immediate financial gain for the PFL from the investment. “We will occasionally get criticised,” Davis said. “When you take a step back, we are investing and growing in the sport. We will not be profitable in Africa until our fifth year. That’s if we do well.

“Until then, we’re investing. We’re putting money into Africa. We believe that, over time, we’ll hopefully be successful. But as a builder of companies, you have to invest time, resources and money.”

The ‘people’s league’

Davis is an entrepreneur first, so he’s not blindly throwing money at an investment. He’s seen an untapped market in Africa that can grow into something extraordinary in the next few years.

“When you look at the two things that really matter, fans and fighters, boy, both are great,” he said. “I think MMA can be the second sport of Africa.

“I think we could have 100 million MMA fans in Africa. And PFL Africa is going to be the people’s league. Everything we’re doing is to make it the people’s league.”

Tickets to the inaugural event sold for about R400. And although the PFL was broadcast on SuperSport, it could also be streamed online for free.

“[We want] access in terms of viewership, access in terms of low ticket price, best African fighters,” Davis said. “We want this to be the people’s league. There are enough fans and the market is ready for that.”

South African fans will have another opportunity to see some of the best MMA fighters in the world at the second PFL Africa event in Johannesburg on 9 August. There are also plans for two more events later this year, but the venues for those are yet to be confirmed. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.