GFL founder Darren Owen joins a special town hall with the MMA Fighting community.
Heading into 2025 for the promotion, Owen joins MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck to to discuss the inaugural season, the upcoming draft, the GFL roster, if there are any updates on the news and notes cycle, and more while answering questions live from the viewers about anything and everything.
Join the show live Monday at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT. You can begin submitting your questions in the video link above. An audio-only version of the show can be found below and on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
Will listen tomorrow at work.
Thanks.
They just signed Tom Atencio
440 Fighters and Draft is coming up
Canadian Darren Owen is no stranger to thinking big.
In 2011, he and fellow Victoria entrepreneur Jason Heit appeared on “Dragon’s Den” to pitch for help to grow their regional mixed martial arts promotion.
Fourteen years later, Owen is dreaming even bigger with the Global Fight League.
Owen is the founder and acting commissioner of the new promotion, which is set to hold its inaugural draft Friday with each of the six teams — Dubai, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Sao Paulo — selecting 20 fighters from a pool of more than 420 athletes from 67 countries.
“Everything and more is falling into place,” said Owen. “It’s pretty inspiring, it’s pretty amazing. It’s definitely even bigger and better than I anticipated it would have been at this time … to know that we are fixing the issues that everyone is having — and creating something new and different that’s wanted and that’s needed.”
He calls the GFL “a positive disruption in the MMA industry.”
Key to the new promotion is the premise that athletes taking part in a fight card will share 50 percent of the revenue generated.
The issue of a fair distribution of profits has long been a bone of contention in other promotions.
“Why do people watch these fights? They’re watching the fighters. There is no sport without the actual fighters themselves,” said Owen. “And you have a system set up where the vast majority of these fighters are making 10 to 15 percent of the revenue share.”
Owen points to leagues like the NFL, NBA and the NHL where the players share in the revenue, calling it “a model that works very well.”
“It’s just the evolution of the sport (MMA),” said Owen.
The GFL also promises to set aside a share of the revenue to the athletes for a retirement fund as well as insurance.
The GFL pool of talent is full of name fighters, albeit some whose time seems to have come and gone.
Draft-eligible fighters include Mauricio (Shogun) Rua, Chad (Money) Mendes, Fabricio Werdum, Anthony (Showtime) Pettis, Andrei (The Pitbull) Arlovski, Frank Mir, Alexander (The Mauler) Gustafsson, Thiago Santos, Jeremy (Lil Heathen) Stephens, Benson (Smooth) Henderson, Hector Lombard, Junior Dos Santos, Luke Rockhold and Tyron (The Chosen One) Woodley.
Rua, Mir, Arlovski, Werdum, Dos Santos, Rockhold, Woodley, Henderson and Pettis are all former UFC champions.
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