The brand new chief of Skilled Fighters League says he’s joyful to be working the number-two participant within the mixed-martial arts discipline….for now.

John Martin is greatest identified within the media trade for his tenures at Time Warner Cable and the previous Time Warner, serving as chief monetary officer for each firms earlier than being named to guide the TV unit as soon as often called Turner Broadcasting. Now, he’s taking over a brand new problem that may marry his love of fight sports activities together with his enterprise acumen, and, he hopes, construct up a competitor to the highly regarded UFC.

“There’s completely demand for an additional premium MMA firm,” says Martin in a latest interview.

Followers, advertisers and distributors all need to do extra with blended martial arts, says Martin, however UFC is a longtime, premium model that always instructions high greenback. “For these companies that need to be in and round MMA, they are often engaged with PFL and we could possibly be a price oriented enterprise supplier for them and never the premium worth of the corporate available in the market,” he says. PFL might have new alternatives as soon as UFC susses out a brand new rights contract. The corporate, a part of TKO, is within the midst of inspecting alternatives. UFC is at present in a rights take care of Disney’s ESPN.

So, too, is PFL. But when UFC does what many anticipate and secures a hefty improve within the worth of its rights, it’s unclear if ESPN will search to carry on to the whole bundle. That might break up UFC throughout a number of totally different platforms and depart a few of them in search of different kinds of MMA stock.

Or, at the very least, that’s what Martin hopes.

The UFC is in search of numbers which can be “fairly sturdy,” says Martin, who says PFL’s personal take care of ESPN comes up for renewal in a few 12 months. fairly sturdy. “I believe for PFL, which is at a substantial low cost to that, it’s going to offer us a really fascinating umbrella to discover a very appropriate accomplice the place you may be within the MMA enterprise and do it at” a extra engaging worth.  With Martin’s arrival, present PFL CEO Peter Murray will transfer to supervise worldwide operations,  and report back to Martin.

Martin isn’t any stranger to the media enterprise. Whereas overseeing Turner – a group of TV networks that on the time included TNT, TBS and CNN – he was enmeshed in selections about distribution, sports activities rights and different trade dynamics. He sees an opportunity to bolster PFL income streams tied to rights charges, tickets, promoting and licensing, amongst others, utilizing the truth that MMA is attracting to youthful audiences which can be tougher to succeed in by way of extra conventional programming.

He’s additionally one thing of a combat-sports buff. After spending his youth enjoying soccer, he pivoted in his mid-20s to coaching within the martial arts, incomes a black belt in karate and a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He competed in quite a few beginner tournaments by way of his early 40s.  

“I used to be not achieved being aggressive and athletic. I wished one thing that was extra of a passion,” Martin remembers. “ So I joined a neighborhood karate college. And I believed I used to be going to do it simply to study self-defense. However I turned obsessed.” And that stoked an early curiosity in MMA. He’ll quickly be spending much more time together with his passion.