Middle East Is ‘New Power Center’ of Global Sports: PFL Founder

Six years after its launch, the Professional Fighters League heads to Riyadh Saturday for its Battle of the Giants pay-per-view event, featuring the PFL debut of former UFC world champion Francis Ngannou. 

PFL founder Donn Davis says there’s good reason his MMA company has doubled down on Saudi Arabia. After all, he says, the Middle East is the next sports capital of the world. 

In an interview in the FOS studio in New York, Davis said PFL sought investors from the Middle East two and a half years ago, even earlier than other sports entities that have done the same. It’s because he saw the region’s influence in sports, and expects it to continue. 

“We went to the Mideast early,” Davis says. “We said: ‘global company, global investors.’ Where is the new power center for global sports? The Mideast.”

Davis says the region wants to be “the next Las Vegas, the fight capital of the world.” In the 1980s, Sin City was where the biggest boxing matches happened. Today, boxing and MMA are huge in Riyadh, which is emerging as a hub for combat sports.

The six-year-old league couldn’t afford its blowout Oct. 19 event otherwise, Davis says. 

The Mideast, long known for its rich oil industry, has aggressively expanded its sports footprint over the years as the NBA regularly holds exhibition games in Abu Dhabi, while Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund bought a minority stake in the Washington Wizards in 2023. 

In 2021, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund bought Newcastle United. That same year, Formula One hosted its first race in the country in Jeddah and LIV Golf was launched, which is backed by Saudi’s PIF. LIV Golf’s first season was in 2022 and has become a PGA Tour competitor.