MMA Fighting - Town Hall w/ GFL's Darren Owen

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

GFL founder Darren Owen joins the channel to discuss their debut year for the promotion and to answer viewer questions about anything and everything, hosted by MMA Fighting's Mike Heck. Follow Mike Heck: @m_heckjr  Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hope you all had a fantastic weekend. And if you're a mixed martial arts fan, it was a very busy one. We had a very fun UFC 311 fight card, which sort of led the charge. But we're back with our second town hall in a four-day span, because, as most of you are aware this past Thursday, we had PFL founder and chairman Don Davis back on, a lot of great feedback, which I appreciate. We asked a lot of hard-hitting questions, not just me, but all of you. And we got some good answers at times. And I'll say I thought Don did a much better job, as did a lot of you, this go-around compared to the first one we did in October. But I appreciate

him coming back on and doing that and answering those questions. But today, we are discussing a promotion that has created a lot of buzz in the mixed martial arts space as they are preparing to host their first events this year. We're talking about the brand new Global Fight League. And anyone here live with us is probably aware or at least heard of the GFL to this point, mostly because some of the names they have announced on the roster, such as Tyron Woodley, Anthony Pettis, Paige Van Zant, to the likes of Kevin Lee and Andrea Arlowski and B. Win,

Joel Romero, Mauricio Shogun Hua, to even names like Frank Mier and Panderle Silva and many, many more. And there's been a lot of excitement surrounding the GFL and its potential. There's also been some critics and skeptics. And hopefully over the next hour or so, we can figure out where everybody stands. As right now, let us welcome in our guest, the founder of the Global Fight League, Darren Owen. Darren, welcome. Thank you for doing this. And it's nice to have another bald man with lightful.

facial here joining me side by side i hope people can tell us apart that's the uh the lower third graphics here how are you sir do well thanks thanks for me mike absolutely it's good to have you with us the the viewers have been asking for this for quite some time and it's been quite a quite a road for the gfl once upon a time it was the wfl the world fight league and there were these big announcements and such and then it kind of went away and people were wondering where did they go and then last year late last year. You went on with Ariel Hawani. GFL was officially announced and it seems like we're off to the races with the roster and everything. I believe the first ever GFL draft is this week as well, right? Yeah, this Friday, 5 p.m. Pacific time, 8 p.m. Eastern time. It's going far and wide out

to the whole world and should be a pretty amazing event. So how will that, how will that all work? Where can people watch it? How is that all going to go down on Friday? Oh, literally, you can watch it anywhere. YouTube, meta, DeZone, pay-perview.com, triller, Fubo, we're sending it out to the entire world. Awesome. So we'll have the team set. First event from what we've heard is happening in April.

I was told that was sort of the target time frame. Is that accurate? Do we have an actual official date for this first event? Are there any updates at this point? April will be the first event. So our cadence will be one event per month starting in April for six months in a row. Each of those six months, that will be our regular season. And we're traveling to each of our six city destinations to host one mega event over a weekend,

where half of our roster will travel to that location and compete. So we're looking to fill the NFL void during the offseason. So we're looking to do two events back to back on Sunday and then a Monday night event. as well. So 30 fights over that weekend. That's our plan. Okay. April, do we have an actual date yet or still kind of figured that? We'll not our whole season schedule in February. So we'll announce the whole, our whole season. Okay. All right. Well, I, we, Don and I started off, I basically hogged the first 30 minutes of that town hall, just asking Don all the questions and then brought you all in the peeps. But I'm just going to bring the peeps in right now.

So Casey on the ones and twos will bring up some questions on the board and we'll give Darren a chance to respond and react to these. And we'll see what's going on. So Casey, please, first question from our friend LazyBed. Darren, how confident are you the GFL holds a successful and profitable event in the first half of 2025? So you mentioned April and then you're going to do something each and every month. How confident are you about the, and it's hard to gauge or define what. success is at MMA, especially when you're an inaugural company. But so I guess the question is, how do you gauge success?

And do you have confidence in profitability within the first three, four events? Yeah, I think those two go hand in hand, successful and profitable. You know, we've seen many promotions that have not been able to make any profits, at least from their events. That's not our model. That's not what we're looking to do. I've historically been successful promoting profitable MMA events. And that's our goal is absolutely, you know, to sustain and to be long term.

You need to turn a profit. So that's our model. I am very confident we'll be able to achieve that with kind of the deals we have in play. You know, the roster we have. Just the way that we've set this up, it's set up to be profitable from the beginning. So I'm very confident, but yes, it's a big ask for a new organization to come out and be profitable right at the beginning. Success would mean we are either very close to having profitable events, but also, you know, executing properly, making sure we're, you know, falling through on the promises we've made and, you know, and just putting on great fights for the fans. that they want to see.

I think that's success, but ultimately, profitability and success are, you know, hand in hand. So part of this, you mentioned that the deals that you guys have in place,

and I know some things haven't been announced yet, but I was talking to a buddy of mine and we were talking about the MMA space and how the UFC has just kind of swallowed all the competition for the most part. And we're kind of comparing it to the pro wrestling model because my buddy, I watch pro wrestling.

I'm not like deep into it as I once was, but I know WWE is at the top of the food chain. There is AEW, and while their attendance is down and their pay-per-view revenue is down and their ratings are way down compared to they were a few years ago, they signed a massive television deal, which almost knocks out all that other stuff. They are a profitable brand. They are making money hand over fist, and it doesn't matter if five people go to the events or 5,000 people go to the small venues, it does not matter because they have this big,

booming TV deal that puts them in a really good spot. what's going on with your television distribution right now? Do you guys have a deal in place yet or are you still working on that? We have offers and we're kind of determining which deal makes the most sense or which collection of deals make the most sense. But you're absolutely right. The reality is, is live sports content is the most valuable content in the world right now. You know, it's kind of AI proof, which, you know, if you're looking at longer term,

just the way that the world's going, a lot of these just regular programming are going to be taken over by AI. And the last thing that they potentially could replace is live sports. It's also the number one driver for people showing up to watch something live is live sports. So, you know, we're in a very unique position in the world right now where media rights are massive for live sports content, especially when you have a collection of a lot of very popular athletes who have their own giant followings themselves. So a lot of it is that, you know, strength and numbers, having that collective of a lot of, you know, very popular athletes who have been proven to be very successful pay-per-view draws

in the past. So that's, you know, that's kind of what we're focused on is securing a major media rights deal. that does take care of, you know, essentially the vast majority, if not all of our costs. How confident are you that by the time the first event happens, the platform will be in place, it'll be watched on that platform. It's a done deal. 100%. Okay. When do you think you'll have that decision made, do you think? We might even be able to announce something next week.

Okay. Great. All right. Thank you, Lazy Bed. Masters of the Universe classic, Mike and Mustache, can we also ask Darren if their shows will be international and how far are they able to reach at the moment while they grow? I mean, you touched on some of this stuff, but I'll give the floor to you here. Yeah, we'll be truly global. That's been our mission from the beginning is, you know,

this is a global league. We're in four different continents, and we want those truly global eyeballs. and that's the, you know, that's just our whole philosophy is our stage is the world. And, you know, we have fighters from all over the, like, literally there's 67 different country athletes that are in our draft. You know, their combined following is over 50 million. So, you know, this is a truly global play from the beginning.

Thank you, sir. What else we got? That's so funny. Fuzzy, we got to know, Derek, who's your favorite MMA fighter or fight? So I don't know if you saw the first town how he did. Don Davis has asked this question. It did not go very well. It went viral, his response.

But do you have a favorite MMA fight that you would go to if you had a night out on in the town and you just want to come home, eat some greasy pizza and watch some fistfights? Is there one you would go to right away? Like create a new fight right now? No, just for like old school, like your favorite fight to go back and watch like anytime. GSP, Matt Hughes too, you know, being a Canadian and, you know, following David Llewaz and George St. Pierre, you know, in their rise to fame, that was, you know,

that was pretty special time. And then obviously what George did and the way he did it as well with, you know, absolute peer class all the way. You know, Justin Gauchy, I was very fortunate to have a lot of his WSOF fights that I promoted with him. Those were, those were some awesome fun fights to watch. So, you know, those are a couple that kind of hit close to home. There you go.

See, Fuzzy? All right. Off to a great start here. Don, yeah, tough, tough scenes for Don, but he admitted that he had a good time. I'm most hardcore anime fan that, like, people don't know. Like, I'm talking like VHS tapes, UFC after UFC after. I've introduced so many of my friends and family to this sport. Yeah, I've, you know, first started off was absolutely obsessed with at the time WWF.

So I had that, you know, I had all the figures. I had the ring. I would spend hours every day just making matches, playing them out. And then when I found real fighting, that's when kind of that shift changed for me. And I've been all in ever since. I'm kind of, I'm pretty much the same way. So, yeah, I understand where you're coming from. Knox too tall.

Will they be trying to find and build stars of their own? Or is it like the big three of basketball? Just old head scratching an itch with the list twinkle of star part, with the last twinkle of star par they have. So a lot of the names on the roster have stood out. the Woodleys and we named off a bunch of them right now but is the plan and I think with every entity you want to try to use some of those names to build newer stars but uh is that like the big goal for you guys is to create new stars and just go generation into generation here like how do you

guys looking at this yeah exactly so you know we need the big names to kind of get the attention right if we just kind of came out with all potential future stars the reality is you and I wouldn't even be having this conversation right now so you know we know we needed the big names we know we need we need that fan base that they already have in place to, you know, bring those eyes to what we're doing. But yeah, you know, we are obviously building for the future. You know, probably 20% of our roster will be very recognizable names. But, you know, 75, 80% will be, hey, this is a potential next future superstar.

So, you know, it's a collection of, you know, I definitely say we're kind of going for the most popular fighters in the world. I think we've kind of seen with, you know, Jake Paul, Mike Tyson route of, hey, people just want to see fights with people who they know. So that's definitely part of it. But yes, we're looking for those diamonds that exist. We're looking for the athletes that have superstar potential. And yeah, you know, some of them will make their names off of competing against, you know, current legends.

So yeah, that's definitely the plan. So you bring up the Jake Paul Mike Tyson thing. And I think some of that kind of goes into what the roster looks like right now and some of the feedback you got once the roster came out. And I think the name that really struck everybody more than anything was Vanderlai Silva because he's 48. He's been through many, many, many, many, wars, as you know. And as the UFC anti-trust lawsuit was going on, he put out a declaration saying that he is dealing with some serious CTE. He is not doing great in that regard. Is he fighting? Like, is he on the roster to fight? Okay. He's our LAT manager.

So, you know, and full transparency, I didn't know that he had gone out and made those claims regarding the CTE. So once we had kind of found that out, which didn't take too long, we were obviously looking to pivot and because like number one is an athletic commission going to license him. Probably not. Number two, you know, what's the logical thing to do if that is the case? And if if that is the case, yeah, let's do it. right like obviously absolute legend want them involved um but let's do it in the right way that that does make sense so yeah we've we've shifted uh shifted vanderlay to a to our late team manager so happy to have them involved in in what we're doing and being a part of it but as far as him actually competing

uh it it won't be with the gFL and then you know frank meir and there are some other names like i know andrew olovsky was still competing for the ufc like i know he's up there in age but he was still competing and was still competitive in a lot of the fights that he had. And, you know, we see some of these, even like Shogun Huah, who got badly knocked out in his last fight in the UFC, are all these, like those other names? Are they all going to be competing in this? They're all in the draft. Whether or not they get drafted is a whole other story. I think that's what people don't really fully understand is these are just, you know, we have 400 and I think as of today, we have like 440-something fighters signed to be draft eligible.

up until Friday, we don't know which fighters are actually going to be on our roster moving forward. Obviously, we can't sign anybody who's not a free agent. So all these athletes are currently free agents. The ones that don't get signed remain free agents. So, you know, we've consulted with coaches, the managers. You know, like we listen to the public and what the perception is and what the thoughts are. Also, you know, part of it is, hey, Frank, How are you doing? How are you feeling? Right. And, you know, seeing these guys in the gym,

like some of them are ready to go at like that level where they need to be ready to go. So, you know, it's definitely a collective effort of us theoretically at the league itself and the team managers and the team coaches to kind of determine which 120 of our pool of 440 something actually make a roster. So I think there's a lot of assumptions being made that, oh, it's only all, these, you know, seasoned veterans, but no one's going to know until Friday, who's actually made a GFL roster. I don't think this is going to happen, but I might as well just throw out this hypothetical. Is there a world where, like, if Woodley and Pettus and Page, like, there's a world that

none of them get drafted, and if they don't get drafted, they are, they're just not fighting for you guys? Like, really? I guess in a parallel universe, and that could happen. It's, hey, tune in, tune in, watch the draft, find out. Okay. So the Mears and them, if they all get drafted, they are fighting whoever they are told to fight, right? So like Frank Meir could fight rebellous to Spain without hesitation because I'm glad you're clearing a lot of this stuff up because these are some of the criticisms and questions people had was, okay, well,

we found out about Vandaleigh, but Vandale fights a 28-year-old guy who is 12-0 with 12 first-round knockouts who is in just an absolute crusher. Would those fights happen? Or if, like, Meir and other legends each get drafted to each team are like the legends going to fight each other? Like, how would that work? Yeah, it would be legends versus legends.

Like, same thing. I don't want to do the Mike Tyson, Jake Paul style age difference. You know, the other thing, too, people also don't fully understand is we're operating all of the six teams ourselves. So we can trade fighters to different teams to create the fights that the fans want to see, that we want to see, that do make sense. So there's definitely going to be some manipulation to make the logical fights happen. I think that's something people aren't really kind of fully understanding as well.

But, you know, I'm here to make the fights that, A, I want to see. and you know I think I'm enough of an absolute hardcore fan that I know for the most part what fights the fans want to see and I don't think people want to see a you know 42 year old you know former legend fighting a 26 year old up and comer who's on a tear right but you know would you want to see Frank Meir fight junior dos Santos I'd be down for that um you know Yuel Romero fight Gagard Musassi sounds like a great fight Um, so, you know, logic will always prevail with what we're doing. Okay. All right. That was, that was one of my big things because as people were criticizing, I was like, well, I don't like using like the older fighters, but I mean, they're around. I'm older than a lot of the fighters on the roster.

So as long as they're fighting each other, I was totally fine with it. As long as it wasn't, you know, like you said, the Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson scenario, I think it will speed go down a little bit better, I guess, to the, to the, to the MMA viewer, especially the hardcore fan. So I'm glad we got to clear some of that up. Let's go back to the peeps. Casey, please. To echo an earlier question, now is the time to let us know.

Will the draft be broadcast live and where we can tune in? Yes, Darren already let us know. It was Friday, 8 p.m. Eastern, you said? Yep. Yeah, everywhere. And it's all over the place. Don't know, wherever. Whatever platform you already have, it will probably be on there.

All right. What else we got? What would you say to those who criticize the average age of the competitors and the draft pool for your league? So we kind of touched on that as well. But I think our absolute lot lower than people think it is. It's just, you know, we push out the big names because it's logical to push out the big names. And, you know, you kind of have to have a career where you can create that, you know, mass fan base.

So, yeah, same thing. Tune into the draft and see what fighters actually get selected. And then after we're done that, we'll obviously be able to determine the average age of our roster. how are you how are you personally like handling the critics who say you know what we're hearing some of the dollars being thrown around we're seeing some of the names on the roster as of now there's like no official tv deal but you said you're working on that they're not even going to get one event off the ground and if they do there's no chance they get a second one off the ground how does like how do you respond to to those critics

because there's a lot it's a lot of respected names in the space who are saying these things too. How do you personally respond to all of that? Hey, if you're talking about us, fantastic. You know, bring on the negativity, bring on the hate, bring on the trash talk. If you're talking about us, mission accomplished. If you're not, that would be a problem. So, um, same thing. You know, the proof is in the pudding. People will see what we actually roll out when we roll it out and then criticize us all day after you watch our first event and see if you have something negative to say. But up until then, hey, keep talking trash. Happy to hear it. Why is 2025 the time for the team-style MMA promotion, so to speak, to work? Because we've

tried it before. It did not work. It was fun. I love the IFL, man. And I'm sure there were events you liked watching too. I love this question. Number one, how many entities have followed the same current promotional model in history, 700, 800. There's been a lot of promotions, correct? Most of them have come, most of them have gone. The vast, vast, vast majority have never been successful. How many have truly been successful using that business model? Using the team one? No, the current, the promotional model. Oh, the current one. Oh, yeah. How many are successful? Yeah, really one. One. Perfect.

Okay. So what's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting different results. So should we follow into the step, you know, the same format as those 699 out of 700 that have ultimately not really been successful? Or should maybe we try something different? Maybe we try something different that has worked historically decade after decade in sport after different sport after different sport after different sport. anywhere in the world, whether it's premier cricket league in India, whether it's Australian Rules Football, whether it's NFL, NBA, NHL, Formula One, all of these sports are wildly vastly

different. However, they all follow the exact same business model. This is just the implementation of that historically proven business model that we know from other sport after other sport works very well. Their athletes receive 50% of the revenues that that league generates. The collective of all of the teams is what the value is, is those media rights for all of that content to be distributed. The storylines that are connected, the A to Z contact or connection of that league. That's what this is. And yeah, people talk about the IFL. What other promotion from 20 years ago are people still talking about that, you know, kind of came and went for a year and a half? We are in a wildly different time. We are in a wildly different

in the world from when the IFL first launched. And still, I feel, I think the concept was, I think they were definitely on to something, you know, talk to anyone who's a part of the IFL and they were like, this was awesome, this was cool. But they still didn't set up the business model as a true league like all the other leagues do. So this is the first time anyone's ever attempted to do what we're doing for the sport of MMA. It's been done. all the time in every other sport. So number one, we're looking to leverage those giant global fan bases of more sports fans.

You know, I think we're definitely going to have a lot of the hardcore fans just based on the athletes we have. But we're looking to transcend into major professional sports where, you know, whether you're a Yankees fan, you're a Knicks fan, and then now you're a New York team, GFL fan. So that's, that's the difference is let's, let's do some. something that we know works with every other sport. And let's try to implement that to the third most popular sport around the planet and a,

and a truly the most exciting sport in the world. Let's create new unique betting lines based on our format. Let's create new different storylines based on this format. So that I think those are the, those are the big differences of everyone's like, oh, we've seen it with the IFL. IFL was like 20 years ago. do we live anywhere in the same world that we did in 20 years ago as far as you know how people consume content and how people pay for content it's uh it's a different time in the world right now

and we're just doing a different thing so let's just say and i know you're confident this is going to work let's just say the numbers aren't where you expect them to be after year one do you just say okay this is this is a learning curve we're just going to build upon that like we know the mistakes we made we know what's working, what isn't, and we're just going to keep the same format? Or are you open to changing things up a little bit? Like, PFL, they just, they did the season format. They try to do the, we're doing a professional sports model with the season and a playoff at a championship. And then they've realized that, okay, it's a little too confusing.

People don't understand this. Let's just go to the almost a Grand Prix tournament model, which they're doing in 2025. So do you feel like there's flexibility there to change the format if needed? Somewhat. I think the reality, though, this is just copy paste of NFL, NBA, NHL. This is, you know, as simply put as that. You know, and do those leagues kind of tweak and change things? Yeah, they do. And I'm sure we will as well.

We have like six or seven groups that are very interested in buying franchise locations right now. So the appetite is there, right? I think people also don't look at that bigger long-term plan of what does a major professional sports franchise worth right now in a popular sport? Billions? A lot. Hundreds of millions. So we're following in those footsteps and we'll create the same value in our teams.

I think you get to a point too. If you have a lot of money in this world and you kind of can kind of do almost anything, you know, not anything you want, but like, you know, you can kind of do what you want to do. So I think it would be a pretty cool game for these guys. like the Jerry Joneses of the world who love their football team and they go all in and that's what he lives for. I'm pretty confident we're going to have the same type of people saying, hey, I want to have my team of trained assassins go compete against this other billionaires team of trained assassins. And we're going to pay to have the best coaches in the world.

We're going to pay to make sure our finite number of athletes 20, 24, whatever it may be. They're valuable if you only have 20, 24 of them. They're less valuable if you have 700 of them on roster. So, you know, you're going to have the best coaching. You're going to have the best facilities. You're going to have the best rehab, everything to properly take care of these athletes that you see in every other major professional sport around the world. So this is just that.

However, this is the, you know, this sport is kind of still in its infancy stage. If you look at it, compared to all these other, you know, historically proven leagues and sports that have been around for, you know, 100 plus years. So this is just the necessary evolution in the business. business model to follow in the same footsteps that we've, you know, we have great examples of. And it's taking the best of the NFL. It's taking the best of the NBA and figuring out what actually works for the unique nuances for the sport of MMA. Like you can have baseball players flying all over the world because they're competing so often. Athletes in MMA don't compete

that often. You can have them flying over the world because they're only going to fight once every two months. So if I wanted to start a GFL franchise, if I wanted to start a team, let's say the Boston Bandits, because that's where I would obviously start the team would be in Boston. Once I acquire the franchise that were locked and loaded, when I draft my team, how does that business model work? Like, is this, do you pay the fighters? Would I have to pay the fighters? Like, how would that work? It's going to be an evolution. So right now, we're operating as a single entity. We're creating as much value for these franchise teams as we can before we take them to market. Do we take them the market in two years, four years, eight years? That'll kind of be seen.

We have some, like we announced our Dubai team. I go to Dubai the day after the draft. I fly from Phoenix to Dubai. We have meetings for interested parties for that Dubai franchise at 100 million. So, you know, if someone comes to the table and says, hey, here's $100 million, we want to own the rights to this team, we're probably going to do that deal. We have people interested in New York. We have people interested in a Salt Lake City team right now. So if we did one of those deals, theoretically, they could buy the rights to Salt Lake. However, they may not establish that Salt Lake team until 2028. Whatever we kind of decide is a logical progression of expansion for the week.

league. So that's kind of how that operates right now. So if someone wants to make an investment in the league itself to secure the rights for a particular location anywhere in the world, we're open to have that conversation. And, you know, some of the people we're talking to are like legit. They own other major professional sports teams. And they see how, you know, how the value of those franchises have skyrocketed and how we are structured and set up the exact same way. All right. Let's keep going here. All right. I'm learning a lot here. This is why we're doing this, Darren.

We're learning some stuff. I think everyone needs to kind of know because there's just all this speculation and perception that I'm like, well, just ask some questions. I'm happy to kind of be transparent and tell you, hey, here's what we're doing and here's why we're doing it. Let's see what AZ Ray videos has to ask. What type of marketing or PR will GFL do to make sure that fighters get notoriety amongst the casual audience? how will you create fandom? This is a very important question. I'm sure these are discussions you and your team have all the time

because you could put on the greatest event on the face of the planet, but if nobody sees it, then it really never happens. So how will you create fandom? How will you reach the casual audience that the UFC has just absorbed over the last four years? Yeah, no, great question. And without a doubt, it's our job to make our fighters famous. and, you know, I'll tell this.

We were going to press release it in the near future, but I'll at least let you know this. We've partnered with the number one storytellers in, I believe in sports right now. So we've signed a deal with box-to-box films to kind of strategize all of our content creation. And, you know, they're the creators of the Formula One Drive to Survive, which is obviously a very global property.

They've done a lot of different docu series for major professional sports leagues around the world. And, you know, it's the collaborative effort of, you know, our marketing team and, you know, whoever is doing our production. And, you know, the fact that let's tell the stories of these athletes. And I think that's what really, you know, drives fandom is when you're emotionally invested in the outcome. So let's make sure we are, you know, showing the world what what the lives of these athletes are like and their struggles and their journeys and their stories and, you know, and how their life has been pre-GFL and then hopefully what their life looks like post and current GFL. So it's, you know, I think it really just comes down to telling the necessary stories and sharing those, you know, behind the scenes, unique look into their. their lives. Speaking of PR and stories and getting things accurate, you and I talked, we didn't really get past really the email stage of this, but you were coming on, so I figure I'd ask you

now. We had written an article in earlier this month, the UFL, the United Fight League, released a statement basically saying that they're impressed with what you guys are trying to do, they wish you all the luck in the future, and then they say, however, due to many online comparisons, between GFL and the UFL as well as confusion stemming from an article describing Harrison Rogers' involvement with a franchise within GFL, it's important to clarify a few points. In early 2024, Harrison-Oren Owen met at UFL headquarters in Mesa, Arizona. Darren presented an impressive vision for what GFL could become. Based on the model presented at the time, Harrison expressed interest in committing to a Phoenix

franchise in GFL as everything transpired as discussed. Since then, it appears GFL has adjusted its model and plans for the future. We, Harrison Rogers and UFL wish them the best of luck. However, Harrison Rogers does not plan to participate in GFL's future or invest $10 million into a Phoenix GFL franchise. And some of this goes on and on a little bit more. But I know there's two sides to every story. Don Davis is on Thursday and said, look, there's one side. There's the other side. There's no black and white. There's always gray. What's your side to this? What happened from your perspective? Well, the first time we met was in Vegas in 2019, right at the end of December 2019.

He was looking to do some political fundraising events and needed someone who has experienced promoting events. So it was actually through Frank Meir connected us. I met with him in Vegas. He also expressed interest. And so at this time, we had launched, at least announced that we were going to launch World Fight League. And I'll just kind of quickly tell you this, switch from World Fight League to Global Fight League was made due to the fact that our trademark got challenged in Europe for World Fight League. So that was the initial change for the name. But presented him an opportunity in, you know, December 2019 to get involved with World Fight League at the time.

Things didn't work out. He subsequently launched United Fight League. League. So not World Fight League. He launched United Fight League in a Grand Prix tournament format. That ran for a while. Again, reached out through another mutual connection of ours to ask for my help as things weren't transpiring as he'd hoped they would transpire. I let him know I I would be happy to come along and assist and help him with that, his current promotion at the time, as I was still looking, I was still trying to raise funds. Like, I've been trying to fundraise this thing for like two years.

And he kind of said, hey, you know, we're, we'd be interested in owning that Phoenix franchise. So, you know, this conversation would be going on for about two years. And this was 10 months ago. I find the timing pretty weird. You know, I've pitched this to probably 300 different people. and, you know, 299 said no. And out of that 299, 298 never put out a press release saying that they weren't completing the deal. You know, verbally it was all done.

He was his thought to say the price was 10 million when that wasn't the actual number we agreed upon. And then, you know, I flew down Bobby Razak, we did some filming. We did a, you know, out of my pocket, he's never given me a dollar. I've never asked other than the actual investment. I've covered every cost. You know, I spent probably $8,000 going down there and filming with him for those two days. And then it kind of just came out later that the event was going to be in Sacramento. So I filled up a card.

I connected to all my Sacramento connections. I've done an event in Sacramento before. And then they pulled the event from Sacramento, moved it to Phoenix and basically said, hey, like, you know, we can just handle this now that it's on our hometown. So, you know, I offered to help promote that event for $5,000 a month. And he said, just couldn't do it at the time based on the fact that they'd made some other hirings within their company. So I said, hey, you know, if we're going to be in business anyways, I'm happy to help.

So I offered to do what it could to put that event together and try to save them some money. and then, you know, in March, in March, he kind of said, well, through his associate, said that, hey, we're taking GFL off the table. So 10 months later to announce a press release, I think it's kind of wild, but hey, it's obviously, I don't know if people were reaching out to him saying, hey, congratulations. We heard you're getting a Phoenix team. I have no idea what actually happened there, but I found it just very unique timing to, to put out a press release 10 months later to say, hey, we're not, you know, either we don't have the money or we're not doing this. I just found it really weird, but hey, it is what it is.

Why do you think, though? Like, why do you think they did that? Because you said there have been others that are like, yeah, we're interested in that we're not doing it. And they didn't put out a press release. And then they did. Do you think this was like a PR move for them, perhaps? Like, I don't know. I thought it was kind of weird too.

We're getting noise and like I know they called Ariel and was like, hey, how come we're not doing this? Like we're doing, we're doing teams like they think they didn't want to vent his teams. Look up the card. See who was on that and maybe see why they're not getting the attention they want to get. I don't I don't know. I really don't know. He's a unique individual.

Fair enough. All right. Thank you for clarifying that. Let's go back to the questions. We've got about 20 more minutes before you got to get out of here. so what else we got? Will each team have individual arenas? So there are true home and away teams.

May the various venues be themed to fit the aesthetic of the home team. Yeah, that's definitely something we're planning to do. This first season is a little more unique based on the fact that we're going to do one event at each of these six city team locations. But yeah, the plan will be home events, away events. and definitely, you know, skin the cages with the home, you know, colors and kind of go all in on creating that home atmosphere and away atmosphere. So, you know, I think that's kind of the challenge right now is often, you know, you go to an event and, you know, 10, 12 fights, 14 fights on the card. And it's often like, okay, well, who you're cheering for and why? And often it's, well, I just hope it's a good fight, you know, unless, oh, I know this person or they're from my state or whatever it may be.

there's you know you often kind of have to just gamble on the fights to make it that never another level of of you know interest or or commitment to it so um bringing in that historically like we know the number one driver in sports fandom is cheering for your favorite team that's that's a proven fact so the fact that teams just don't even exist in the sport is one thing so we we know we create that you know it's l a versus new york okay you from l a you're from new york who you're cheering for. You know in each fight, every fight you're like, yeah, I want the, you know, you're cheering for the red team or the blue team.

You know, it just kind of built in that, you know, what's kind of just in our DNA of, you know, our tribe versus your tribe. So that's definitely part of the whole GFL experience will be the ability to cheer for your home team. Also, fantasy too. You know, I think that's a unique thing that we can bring to the sport is like a real proper fantasy MMA, which obviously is pretty massive in a lot of the other professional sports.

So with our format, that makes sense. We also create new and unique betting lines for the sport that are also historically very traditional, you know, whether you're betting on the NFL, the NBA, you know, there's an overrunner for points. So, you know, a couple more things like that too where, you know, you can bet on the overall champion at the beginning of the season. So, yeah, different elements to it. So nothing's perfect.

But let's just say for some reason this this takes off. It's exactly what you planned out. And the next year, exactly how you planned out. And the next year, exactly how you planned out? By like 2029, 2030, what is this looking like? How many teams are there? Like, I'm sure you guys have thought about this a little bit. But like, do you think this could be like 16, 18, 20 teams?

Or are you hoping to keep the circle a little smaller? You know, obviously we don't want to dilute, dilute talent. So we want to make sure we have, you know, quality fights across the board. But yeah, no, absolutely. Expansion is on the table and what we're looking at doing. So, you know, we've kind of thought logically probably two teams per year.

But again, you know, we'll take it a step at a time and see what makes sense and when it makes sense to do it. But yeah, definitely expansion. All right. Casey, next question. weight classes and weight cutting will weight classes follow other organization standards or intro new ones like 165 and has weight cutting protocols been decided i think you guys put out something like this the weight class are a little bit different right yeah weight classes are different theoretically we're fine with even call everything a catch weight like we'll we'll still announce the fighters whatever their historical weight category has been um that's what we'll you know that's what we'll at least call them you know a gFL lightweight however the way in at 165.

GFL light heavyweight will wane at 225. So this is just kind of our attempt to help with that extreme weight cutting and reduce that. Like we know historically what fighters have been in what weight category. So we're not allowing fighters to switch their historical weight category. Obviously, if they've gotten bigger, no problem. But like we have some athletes who are like, hey, I can cut and make this. I was like, no, no, no.

Everybody can cut and make that. But that's not what we're doing here. This is the whole thing is, let's fix as many of the problems as we can fix. And, you know, there's obviously a limitation to what we can do and when we can do it. So this is just kind of the start of that process to really try to eliminate extreme weight cutting. And if two athletes, I'm like, hey, man, what are you walking at? I'm walking at 168. Oh, okay, I'm walking at 169.

Okay, let's just call it a catch of 168. And we have no problem just making that happen, you know, for bout agreements to even further reduce weight cutting and hopefully, you know, get rid of it all together. But it'll take some time. Okay. Good question, Sierran. Appreciate you. What else you got? I don't know why I'm asking this, but each team have a mascot.

That's a great question. I think eventually, I don't know if we're going to have all of that in place, you know, beginning of the season, part of the season. we'll see but yeah it's it's 100% it's been thought of that's super funny um i don't know if you guys saw what was going on because there is um you know how you see different things you guys post something this fighter has signed with the gFL and then the fighter or somebody on the team will say no i'm actually booked to fight for ksw or no i'm still under contract with pfl no i'm under contract with this and i've talked to i've reached out to multiple managers and teams about this. One manager in particular said, hey, we're going to chalk this up to no harm, no foul.

They realized what they did. They fixed it immediately. It's all good. There's no problem on our end. What happened with all that? Is it just like a mistake? We put the car before the horse, I guess. Yeah. Well, I think what it is is we're often negotiating. And then, you know, we have spreadsheet with all the info of kind of like where we're at with the negotiation, whether it's contract sent, contract signed, even some that have been signed, we find out after the fact, like, not all these managers are on top of everything. Maybe we'll just say that. You know, you kind of come across a unique breed of individual in this sport.

And like even today, we got a letter saying, hey, this person's actually under contract with another entity. And then like, they're sending a screenshot. So like, no, like we're not. We were told this. We were told that. So, you know, first, you know, if there's ever a discreferral, Reconcee, number one, we just take down whatever we've put up, you know, and then investigate

to figure out what is really the, you know, the situation, the status. You know, I think part of it's too is like, man, like every fighter on the planet right now that's a free agent or assumingly thinks that their free agent has reached out and has been interested. And, you know, same thing with all the managers out there. You know, so sometimes I think a couple of us. accidentally slipped through the cracks. It's obviously not something we're trying to do. So even though the fighter's names are very close to other fighters' names. So I'd say less than three or four.

There's out of 400, 500 or probably a number we've at least connected with. Like we've probably connected with at least 1,000 fighters. And out of those thousand, you know, we've chosen to at least send contract offers to, you know, 400, 500 in that range. So yeah, if there's, if there has been a mistake, it's, it's obviously we're not. We have significantly bigger names that are buttoned up and we know they are. So we're not intentionally at least making the odd one or two mistake. But it has happened and, you know, it is what it is.

And we just deal with it as it happens and say sorry and delete whatever we've done and move forward. as far as PR goes I think a lot of the reason why your guys are getting phone calls and people are wanting to fight for you is people are hearing about some of the dollar amounts being thrown around I've heard about some

I've obviously sworn to secrecy I've seen I've seen some of the craziest stuff and I was like this is just not true you know so there's not one so is there anybody can you can you confirm that there's nobody

$1.4 million contract. Nobody. Not one person has a contract for $1.4 million. I've seen that number. I don't know where it came from. I don't know if it's managers trying to clout that they got this deal or that deal. I don't know if it's fighters trying to be like, oh, I got this deal. I don't know if it's fighters calculating their three fights, their individual fights,

timesing it by three and then saying that's their contract. Maybe that's what they're doing. I don't know. There's some wild stuff I've seen out there. A lot of it is just not true. Okay. So, I mean, that's a good, it's a good thing while you hear it. I heard, I didn't hear 1.4.

I heard 1.2 from a couple. So is there anybody on the roster right now that is signed? If they are drafted, they will make a million dollars a fight. Yeah, of course. We wouldn't have some of the names we have if we weren't up in that range. Okay. It's a small. It's small.

No one has a 1.4. Somebody might have a 1.2. Okay. All right. But for the most part, average contract, pretty damn good, right? It sounds like it. Impairably, yeah, number one, like, same thing. Let's fix the problems.

What are the problems is fighters fighting one or two times a year? They don't want to do that. You know, so we guarantee the three fights in the regular season, and then the potential for a fourth fight in the playoffs, you know, assuming they're healthy. And yeah, you know, our big thing is our revenue share percentage. So the fact that these athletes can, well, the fact that these athletes are equitable partners and sharing the success of the events, I think just motivates them. Like, number one, they should be motivated to promote and to sell. So they either, they either get their guaranteed purse amount.

And we don't do the show win. We just do the, hey, here's your amount. You come up, you do your job. Worst case scenario. Like, you know, Patrick Mahomes doesn't get a. less paycheck. If he throws three interceptions and they lose the game, you know,

for him it doesn't matter. So, you know, this same thing. It's let's, let's just do what every other major professional league sports league does. You know, and it's going to take some time to get that in.

But yeah, it's a guarantee. So they at least know, worst case scenario, I'm walking away with this. And, you know, best case scenario,

they're walking away with potentially significantly more. And, you know, they just share in how well the event is do themselves. So I would say this too for the draft we have two things. I have my own financial cap that I can't exceed. So part of that is you're not going to see all of the athletes that have big contracts. They're not all going to get in.

And partly is there is a salary cap on what we can actually, you know, budget for. And then the other aspect is there's. there's revenue share percentage points. So, you know, Tyron Woodley has a higher amount of revenue share points than, you know, the vast majority of everybody else. But collectively, each team can have 100 revenue share points collectively. So that's another element to it as well. And then obviously their guarantee is directly tied to the revenue share percentage points. So we kind of have an idea of how much revenues we're going to generate and how much of that we can share.

So that's the other side of it too is, you know, there's essentially like a salary cap for revenue share points per team as well. Okay. And so just to clarify, just want to make sure because this is, again, this is what comes up all the time and I'm glad you're here to answer this. There's what, four, 500 fighters that you are actively like, okay, I'm in on this, but not all of them will fight. So you're not actively paying 500 fighters to compete three times this year.

at exorbitant prices, right? Like, they have to be drafted. They have to compete to fight because that is the whole thing is like, how in the world are they going to actually feasibly do this and host these events and have all this if they're paying this kind of money to 500 fighters overall this time? Now we're clarifying that is not how this works, right? That's not how this works.

So like obviously we need to know, we need to know which fighters are, you know, are in, and the ones that are, we need to know, like, what is their purse? What is their revenue share percentage? Like, what's their guarantee and what's their rev share points? And yeah, we have spreadsheets that calculate all of that information. And based on that, we know, number one, what guarantees we can actually guarantee and what rev share points we can actually implement. So it's, you know, it's some math.

It's not like super advanced. you know, but that's how it works. So each team will have 20 athletes. That's it. Six teams, 120 of the 400 and something pool we have, 120 will get signed. The other 300 are free agents. They're currently free agents or else we wouldn't be able to sign them.

So they remain free agents. Obviously, we're going to have injuries. Obviously, you know, visas issues are going to come up and things happen. So when we look to, oh, you know, fighter ABC can't compete, they either go on injured reserve. Then we sign a free agent. Most likely we'll probably look to that pool that we already have. However, if a more unique option is available at that time, we'll look to that as well. So, you know, again, logic will always prevail.

There is rhyme, reason, calculations, budgeting for all this stuff. It's not just, hey, everybody is a pool of money for everyone to just get in on. That's not how it is. Yeah, because that was the perception of all of this is just like, okay, that's why. And I think that's why a lot of people are like, they're never going to get even event one off the ground, let alone event two, because once they have event one, they're going to be out of money. That's just the perception of all of this. So again, now we're clarifying some stuff and getting a little bit more of the dotting of the eyes and the crossing of the T's, if you will. All right, we got like five minutes.

Let's take a couple more if we can. Joseph, I hope everything works out for Darren and GFL. I was confused at first, but this is a great town hall. And Darren did a great job of clearing up any confusions we had. Thank you, Joseph. This is why we do these. This is why we do these. I did one last night, too, for a bunch of journalists.

And, you know, same thing. It was like, oh, oh, this actually does make a lot more sense after you're kind of elaborated and explained it all. GFL sounds great. They're trying. They're doing something different, but right. And Darren is a huge Emmy fans. So I appreciate what they're doing and having a go at it.

That's what it's about. All right. We're getting fans, Darren. This is good. This is good. Lazy bed who I'll tell you. Lazy bed is, we'll tell you the truth. If he has an issue, he will tell you.

I'll be honest. I came into this pretty skeptical. And now he's feeling it. You got lazy bed on your side. That's like, like, we're going to have badass logos, badass names, badass storylines.

We're going to, you know, we're going to just do this thing in a different way. We're not trying to compete. with anybody. We're not trying to be the same as this or that. We're doing our own thing. We're in our own lane. And it's just going to be a different way to consume the sport that we all love. And yeah, the part of it is too is let's get sports fans in on this. Like let's let's get the Dodgers fans, the Lakers fans to be L.A. GFL team fans.

We're going to have to follow a lot of Montreal. Do we try to do a Montreal team? No venues. Well, six months have blocked out availability for the two venues in Montreal that would work. So we'll expand. We'll get there. All right. Anything else, Casey?

No, I think we're good, gentlemen. All right. Darren Owen, the founder of GFL. I think we got a lot of information here. There's obviously, this is MMA. As you know, Darren, you've been a fan and watching the sport and been involved in for quite some time. even if most people with logic like what you had to say, there's going to be two or three people who are going to crap on anything you say no matter what.

So it comes to the territory. Appreciate that. Any final words? Any final thoughts you want to give to the potential fans over these last couple of minutes before we let you go? No, just appreciate the time to kind of explain a little bit further of our model and how it works. And yeah, you know, we're just, we're looking to do something different. We're looking to evolve and really kind of just take these athletes to the next level that, you know, they see their professional other athletes earning that are generating similar revenues.

So that's all this is, is just, you know, time to evolve the business model and, you know, elevate these athletes in line with their, you know, their feather fellow other professional athletes that are just earning significantly better than they are right now. All right. So things to keep an eye out for. We get the GFL draft on Friday. p.m. Eastern, you can watch it on YouTube, DeZone, Triller, Fubu,

Fubo, wherever, wherever. Darren says, look somewhere and you will find it. So check out the draft and see where all these fighters go. TV deal to be announced soon. We hope to find that out. Date, venue, location of the first event. Hopefully we will find out very soon as well as we roll on into the inaugural season

of the Global Fight League. Darren, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for answering the questions. I'm sure the people appreciate this as well. And that's it, everybody. I'm officially on vacation for the next 10 days. So I'll finish packing my bags and get on out of here. For Darren Owen, for Casey on the once and twos,

thank you for all the great questions. I am Mike Eck. Hope you guys enjoyed it. We'll see you next time here on Town Hall. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.