Reportcard: John Martin’s First Year as PFL CEO – A Closer Look
John Martin took over as CEO of the PFL in July 2025, stepping in with a background most fight promotion executives simply don’t have. He spent years at Time Warner as CFO and then ran Turner Broadcasting as chairman and CEO from 2014 to 2018, overseeing a portfolio that included HBO, CNN, and Turner Sports. He also earned a black belt in karate and a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, so the MMA world wasn’t foreign to him when he walked through the door.
His first move was one of the most consequential in PFL history: he scrapped the tournament format. The structure that had defined the promotion since its relaunch was gone, replaced by a traditional champion-in-each-weight-class model with live rankings and matchmaker-driven bouts. Martin cited fighter welfare as a key reason; the gruelling multi-fight format was generating injuries and forcing withdrawals, even among competitors who were winning. The unexpected upside, he told Forbes, was fighter morale. “The fighters are much happier now by and large,” Martin said.
The Future of the PFL with John Martin
The scale of what Martin has set in motion in under a year becomes clearer when you look at the numbers side by side. The product changes appear to be registering with fans. Ticket sales in the U.S. are up year over year, and ratings on ESPN have climbed during Martin’s tenure, even amid limited promotional support from the network. The PFL laid out a 24-event schedule for 2026, comprising 16 global shows and eight international cards. Events have already taken place in Sioux Falls, Belfast, Dubai, Brussels, Pittsburgh, Pretoria, and Chicago, with San Diego coming June 27 and Long Island on July 31.
The promotion has moved into a traditional champion-in-each-weight-class structure, introduced live rankings, and overhauled how it builds and markets fights. Events now come with live music during main event walkouts, fighters walking into purpose-dressed venues, and a production feel that Martin has deliberately distinguished from a standard fight card.
The broadcast situation is where things get interesting. PFL’s deal with ESPN, which dates back to 2019, is running out, and Martin has made clear he isn’t expecting to renew it. He publicly criticised the network’s promotional effort on Ariel Helwani’s podcast, pointing out that ESPN is no longer carrying UFC content yet still hasn’t meaningfully pushed PFL. The promotion has since exited its exclusive negotiating window with ESPN without a new deal in place.
In its place, PFL is now in active discussions with Netflix and Fox, according to a report by Adam Stern in Sports Business Journal. Netflix has leaned heavily into combat sports, its Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson event drew 60 million households worldwide, making it an attractive landing spot. Fox, which last carried UFC programming in 2018, still operates FS1 and FS2 and has shown willingness to put live sports in primetime on its broadcast network. Martin has left the door technically open on ESPN, though his public comments have made a return there look unlikely.
In August 2023, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund vehicle SRJ Sports Investments took a minority stake in PFL, with the explicit goal of launching a regional league and staging Super Fight events in the Kingdom. PFL MENA launched its third full season in 2026.
The season opener moved to the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai on May 24, branded as “Pride of Arabia,” with UFC veteran Mohammad Yahya headlining against Tunisia’s Mehdi Saadi in front of a home crowd. The league then returns to Jeddah, where a June 19 card featuring the professional debut of local fighter Hattan Alsaif in the main event. PFL MENA broadcasts on MBC Action, reaching free-to-air audiences across the Arab world, and has steadily built a regional identity around homegrown fighters advancing through a structured tournament.
PFL Africa launched in July 2025 in Cape Town, South Africa. The promotion secured immediate distribution depth: Canal+ took the French-language rights across Sub-Saharan Africa and carries PFL Africa live to nearly eight million homes. Season 2 kicked off in April 2026 at the SunBet Arena in Pretoria, marking PFL Africa’s first event in that city, the third South African city to host the promotion.
From there, the league announced a June 13 debut in Lagos at the Eko Convention Centre, billed as the largest MMA event in West African history, headlined by Nigeria’s Wasi “The Nigerian Jaguar” Adeshina. The tour has already passed through Johannesburg, Pretoria, Kigali, and Cotonou before arriving in Nigeria. PFL Africa GM Elias Schulze, who has nearly two decades of experience in sports business, said the debut season confirmed what the organisation believed going in: “Africa is a powerhouse for mixed martial arts.”
One aspect of the new broadcast conversation that caught attention was Martin’s openness to working with MVP MMA, the promotion co-founded by Nakisa Bidarian and Jake Paul that distributes through Netflix. In a conversation with Forbes, Martin said he would “absolutely be interested” in a co-promotion if it made sense for PFL, noting that MVP has access to the Netflix platform while PFL has the roster depth a serious global competitor needs. “What I tell internally to all our people is that, look, we’re not the UFC, we’re not number one. We’ve got to be willing to try to do some things that maybe would be unorthodox,” Martin said.
His target is clear: cement the PFL as the world’s number two MMA promotion before anyone else occupies that seat. The arrival of MVP and Scott Coker’s announced global league for 2027 have made that window feel shorter. To close it, Martin has been building the card around a mix of rising Americans and international names. Johnny Eblen, who recently scored a dominant win in Pittsburgh, is set to fight again soon in a rematch against Costello van Steenis. A.J. McKee headlines the San Diego card at the end of June. At the Long Island show, lightweight champion Usman Nurmagomedov defends against undefeated NCAA Division I All-American wrestler Archie Colgan, while Dakota Ditcheva fights Denise Kielholtz in the co-main.
Martin has also been building outside the cage, staging events in cities and venues that generate their own story. The Madrid show marked the first time a premium MMA organisation held a major event in Spain, with local headliner Costello van Steenis giving the crowd a fighter to rally behind. PFL Brussels followed, where undefeated Patrick Habirora, who appeared at Paris Fashion Week the week before stepping into the cage, made a significant impression. Martin has also introduced live musical performances during main event walkouts at recent European shows, a detail aimed at separating the PFL experience from a standard fight card.
Taken as a whole, Martin’s first year looks more like a structural overhaul than a settling-in period. He replaced the tournament format that had defined the PFL for years, hired around the product, moved events into new markets on four continents, and began the process of exiting a broadcast deal that wasn’t serving the promotion. Ticket sales are up, ESPN ratings have risen, and the fighter roster, Usman Nurmagomedov, Dakota Ditcheva, Johnny Eblen, and A.J. McKee, is as deep as the PFL has ever had.
The MENA operation is in its third season with Saudi investment behind it, and PFL Africa is midway through Season 2 with events now reaching Nigeria for the first time. Where it gets interesting is distribution: the ESPN situation has drifted toward an exit without a confirmed replacement, and the Netflix and Fox discussions, however promising, remain open. Martin has done the hard internal work. The next test is whether the right broadcast partner arrives in time to put that work in front of the audience it deserves.
The next media deal will likely define whether Martin’s first two years translate into lasting structure or remain a promising run without a stage big enough to showcase it. As he put it: “If we’re making it hard for our fans to come and see us, imagine how popular it could be if we make it less hard.”
