Breaking: Global Fight League Official Announcement with Ariel Helwani
Darren Owen Joined Ariel Helwani on his show today to announce the official launch of Global Fight League, a brand-new promotion launching in 2025. Originally scheduled to launch in 2023, they now have secured funding from tech investors in Silicon Valley.
Global Fight League
The Global Fight League will be launching 6 teams on four continents, with venues booked in 10 cities across the world. It is a team-based concept, with each team located in cities TBA. Each team will contain 20 fighters across 10 weight classes. The weight classes will be unique to the GFL, with all bouts operating under a catchweight. The GFL announced the top fifty most followed fighters, with the list being:
The GFL will be hosting a draft in February, allowing a better idea of where each fighter is going to land.
Owens spoke of a 50/50 revenue split, which allows all revenue to be split among all fighters on the event, and there is no win bonus, just a flat show rate. Depending on which is more, the fighter will take home either the guaranteed money or the rev share. (Ex. a fighter is paid $10,000, they negotiated a revenue split at 1%, and the event generates $5 million, the fighter will take instead $50,000 as their check). This could be massive for the landscape of the MMA and could lead to much more money in the pockets of the fighters. The revenue split will go into a pool and will be split amongst the fighters that fight at each event. More information is to come in the next few months as the GFL establishes everything further.
Kevin Lee and Anthony Pettis joined the program to expand on the concept from an athlete’s perspective. Pettis stated “The checks have been cashing”, meaning the money is already flowing from the promotion, and Kevin Lee said “Darren has followed through on everything he has said to me”. Pettis spoke on the flexibility of the contracts, allowing fighters to pursue other ventures outside of the GFL as well. With the backing of significant stars, this could be a game-changer in the sport of MMA.
Here is a link to the Global Fight League’s website, and there will be updates in the coming months.
