The Professional Fighters League (PFL) has forged a major media rights agreement with Starzplay, a leading streaming service in the Middle East and North Africa.
The multi-year deal will bring PFL’s full range of mixed martial arts franchises to fight fans in the MENA region, including the PFL World Tournament, Champions Series, PFL Europe, PFL MENA, PFL Africa, and the newly announced PFL Pacific event that will debut in December.
Starzplay, which has more than three million subscribers, is available in 20 MENA countries, including Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Egypt and Pakistan.
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Mixed Martial Arts has a global audience of 550 million fans, which it says makes it the third largest sports audience, behind only soccer and basketball. Its fans are also younger and more digitally engaged than the audiences for other sports, making them a coveted demographic. The PFL is the first and only league to present MMA in the sports-season format where individual fighters compete in a regular season before advancing to playoff and championship rounds.
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MMA is massive in Saudi Arabia. Since the PFL’s inception in 2018, Saudi Arabian MMA fighters have won more than 35 medals in various international competitions.
MENA rights to PFL events were previously held by MBC Group.
PFL action will kick off on Starzplay in the MENA region on April 3 with the PFL World Tournament. The PFL MENA event are the season two quarterfinals on May 9 in Jeddah with a featherweight bout pitting Saudi Arabia’s Abdullah Al-Qahtani (pictured, above) against Egypt’s Islam Reda.
“We are very excited to partner with Starzplay, the leading streaming platform in the MENA region, to bring world-class MMA action to millions of passionate fight fans,” said PFL CEO Pete Murray.
“This multi-year partnership marks a significant milestone in our mission to expand the PFL’s global footprint and deliver premium combat sports content to audiences worldwide,” he added, further noting that the Middle East is a key market for PFL.
Commented Starzplay COO and co-founder Danny Bates: “Our partnership with the Professional Fighters League further strengthens our sports content portfolio, bringing the excitement of world-class MMA to Starzplay.”
Starzplay, which was launched in 2015 under the name Starz Play Arabia as the first Starz-branded SVOD outside the U.S., has close ties to U.S studios including Lionsgate, MGM, Showtime, Paramount+, Warner Bros, Universal, Discovery and Sony Studios. They also make their own regional originals such as “Million Dollar Listing UAE,” “The Italian Dream,” and “Say Yes to the Dress Arabia.”
The PFL deal will give a biog boost to their sports offerings that currently include Italian Serie A soccer, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and various cricket, rugby, boxing, golf, and basketball leagues.
