PFL CEO John Martin Publicly Trashes ESPN

The Professional Fighters League (PFL) emerged in the late-2010s hoping to be a serious challenger to UFC's dominance in televised mixed martial arts and struck a deal with ESPN a few years later, along with a multi-year broadcast extension in 2022. Yet despite coming up on eight years since first partnering with ESPN, PFL's CEO has a bone to pick with the Worldwide Leader in Sports.

In an interview with Ariel Helwani, PFL CEO John Martin bluntly said that he's disappointed with ESPN's lack of promotion for his company. He accused them of doing "virtually nothing" to promote the PFL this year.

"ESPN is not doing really anything to promote us. Disappointing, because I was really hopeful coming into the year that they would really help us. They've done virtually nothing," Martin said.

Martin pointed out that while the viewership percentages are still going up, the actual numbers are still too small and he hopes to build off of that.

"Our audience figures year-on-year is up even though our lead-in going into our fights is down 50%," Martin said. "So we're bucking a bad lead-in, and actually our average audience is up. And if you look at the top of the card … our peak viewership is up 37% so far year-on-year, three events, and for the co-main and the main, viewership is up 33%. Now, I would submit those percentages are huge, but the numbers are still too small. So we have to continue to build on that," Martin said.

No point?

MMA fans weren't exactly offering a shoulder to cry on either. Many dismissed Martin's complaint on the grounds that the PFL simply doesn't offer a product that's worth promoting.

"PFL cant draw flies... why would espn waste resources promoting it?" one user remarked.

"People aren't paying espn+ subscriptions to watch PFL. The app sucks people only paid for UFC and even then, people still streamed PPVs. ESPN+ streams B and C league level sports," another said dismissively.

"Horrible look for PFL. If they were worth promoting ESPN would promote . They prob see all the numbers on the back end and think its not worth it," a third wrote.

It's an unfortunate reality that most sports networks, even ESPN, tend to give proportional attention to the sports and leagues that give the most ratings. The NFL, NBA, WNBA, college sports and MLB will always be in tier one, the NHL, UFC and soccer will mostly be tier two and pretty much everything else goes into tier three (with some exceptions).

Until that changes, ESPN's approach to its partnership with the PFL probably won't.

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This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 1:25 PM.