John Martin, Former Warner Executive, Named CEO at Professional Fighters League

The new leader of Professional Fighters League says he’s happy to be running the number-two player in the mixed-martial arts field….for now.

John Martin is best known in the media industry for his tenures at Time Warner Cable and the former Time Warner, serving as chief financial officer for both companies before being named to lead the TV unit once known as Turner Broadcasting. Now, he’s taking on a new challenge that will marry his love of combat sports with his business acumen, and, he hopes, build up a competitor to the very popular UFC.

“There is absolutely demand for another premium MMA company,” says Martin in a recent interview.

Fans, advertisers and distributors all want to do more with mixed martial arts, says Martin, but UFC is an established, premium brand that often commands top dollar. “For those businesses that want to be in and around MMA, they can be engaged with PFL and we could be a value oriented business provider for them and not the premium price of the company in the market,” he says. PFL could have new opportunities once UFC susses out a new rights contract. The company, part of TKO, is in the midst of examining opportunities. UFC is currently in a rights deal with Disney’s ESPN.

So, too, is PFL. But if UFC does what many expect and secures a hefty increase in the value of its rights, it’s unclear if ESPN will seek to hold on to the entire package. That could split UFC across several different platforms and leave some of them seeking other kinds of MMA inventory.

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

The UFC is seeking numbers that are “quite robust,” says Martin, who says PFL’s own deal with ESPN comes up for renewal in about a year. quite robust. “I think for PFL, which is at a considerable discount to that, it’s going to provide us a very interesting umbrella to find a very suitable partner where you can be in the MMA business and do it at” a more attractive price. With Martin’s arrival, current PFL CEO Peter Murray will move to oversee international operations, and report to Martin.

Martin is no stranger to the media business. While overseeing Turner – a collection of TV networks that at the time included TNT, TBS and CNN – he was enmeshed in decisions about distribution, sports rights and other industry dynamics. He sees a chance to bolster PFL revenue streams tied to rights fees, tickets, advertising and licensing, among others, using the fact that MMA is attracting to younger audiences that are harder to reach through more traditional programming.

He’s also something of a combat-sports buff. After spending his youth playing soccer, he pivoted in his mid-20s to training in the martial arts, earning a black belt in karate and a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He competed in numerous amateur tournaments through his early 40s.

“I was not done being competitive and athletic. I wanted something that was more of a hobby,” Martin recalls. “ So I joined a local karate school. And I thought I was going to do it just to learn self-defense. But I became obsessed.” And that stoked an early interest in MMA. He will soon be spending even more time with his hobby.