With $60 million in funding and nearly four decades of combat sports experience, Scott Coker, a seasoned promoter in the mixed martial arts community, is setting up a new international MMA league.
Coker, a former martial artist and promoter behind two major MMA leagues, is preparing to unveil a groundbreaking international MMA league designed to set a new standard across the sport and the industry and place athletes firmly at the center of the global MMA ecosystem. The league doesn’t have a name yet.
The venture launches with $60 million in financing led by Creator Sports Capital, with participation from Griffin Gaming Partners and a coalition of strategic investors across sport, media, technology and finance. Griffin’s cofounder Peter Levin did an exclusive interview with us about why he will serve as cofounder and chairman of the MMA league.
The timing reflects an inflection point for the sport. Mixed martial arts has grown into a $20 billion-plus global market with more than 625 million fans worldwide, driven largely by the highly coveted male 18–34 demographic, and industry projections suggest it could become the world’s third most-watched sport by 2035. Yet despite that growth, professional athletes across more than 40 countries lack a clear pathway to career advancement and access to elite competition, a gap the new league is being built to close.
Coker brings an unmatched track record to the venture, having founded one and scaled two legendary MMA franchises in Strikeforce and Bellator MMA. A pioneer in the sport, he
promoted the first MMA events in California, France, Italy, Hungary and Israel. At Strikeforce, he was the first to feature women’s MMA on a major platform and the first to put a women’s main event on national television.
Across more than 700 events globally, Coker has discovered and developed the careers of MMA legends including Daniel Cormier, Ronda Rousey, Gina Carano, Cris Cyborg, Tyron Woodley, AJ McKee, Aaron Pico, Usman Nurmagomedov and Luke Rockhold, among many others. A 9th-degree black belt in Taekwondo, he is a lifelong martial artist with deep roots in the combat sports community and the entertainment industry.
“I always knew I wanted to come back when the time was right, with the right vision and a
carefully curated team. That time is now,” said Coker, who will serve as the company’s CEO. “There is an incredible demand for a fresh, new global brand in MMA. This new league is about returning to what matters: the integrity of competition, respect for the athletes and sharing their remarkable journeys with the world. We are building something authentic, something that belongs to the athletes and to the fans who live and breathe this sport. I’ve spent nearly two years developing this concept, and I’m thankful to Peter, all of our investors and the team we’re putting together.”
Coker is joined as co-founder by Peter Levin of Griffin Gaming Partners, who will serve as
Chairman of the Board. Levin has a long history with Coker, having served as both an adviser and investor in Strikeforce, which was sold to UFC in 2011.
“Scott is a generational operator in the world of combat sports,” said Levin. “He has proven time and again that he can scale a business globally and profitably. His ‘fighter-first’ orientation has earned him loyalty and admiration from MMA athletes around the globe and across generations. He’s a world-beater, and I’m looking forward, yet again, to embarking on this journey together.”
Origins
Levin said he had been talking with Coker on and off for ten years, even longer than he had been talking about forming Griffin Gaming Partners, which debuted in 2019.
“I’ve been asking Scott for literally ten years to throw his hat back in the ring. He really is a generational operator, one of only two people that have really taken MMA global at scale profitable. And he’s done it twice,” Levin said.
Of course, the other one is Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a formidable competitor. It’s not about taking on White, Levin said. It’s about how Coker is now free from Bellator and has the chance to do something new again.
“There’s tons of pent-up demand for triple-A MMA content and very little supply,” Levin said.
Asked why he joined with Levin, Coker told GamesBeat in a message, “Peter and Griffin bring a complimentary and highly differentiated set of tools to the equation. They are native digital and deeply understand the world of gaming and all its adjacencies. Peter’s network is vast and international in nature which is also quite additive to our goals and ambitions. He is not a newbie to the sport of MMA. Having an understanding of the nuances and subtleties of the sport is important and carries weight within the greater MMA community.”
“Scott Coker is one of the few operators in combat sports who has built winning franchises at a global scale, and he has done it by putting athletes first. The sport has reached a moment where a generation of world-class talent deserves a clear path to the top, and Scott has the experience, the relationships and the vision to deliver it. We’re proud to lead this round and partner with Scott, Peter and this group of investors to build something the athletes and the fans deserve,” said Benjamin Grubbs, cofounder and co-managing partner of Creator Sports Capital, in a statement.
The broader investor and advisor group reflects deep expertise across sport, media, technology and finance. Additional investors include Upper Deck; Steve Kaplan, owner of D.C. United and co-founder of Oaktree Capital; Swimmy Minami, founder of Visional and a limited partner of the New York Yankees; iconic skateboard legend Tony Hawk; former Fortress Investment Group Vice-Chairman Dean Dakolias; and others, including several with ownership stakes in both the NFL and NBA. The advisory group features former TelevisaUnivision CEO and former Viacom CFO Wade Davis, former Sony Pictures Television Chairman Steve Mosko, and former President of Paramount Network, CMT, Spike TV and TV Land Kevin Kay.
More details, including league structure, multi-region and athlete participation and event schedules will be announced in the coming months.
A multimedia sports opportunity
Levin has often sat at the nexus of gaming, intellectual property and sport, whether that’s at Griffin or Lionsgate.
“At any given moment, there’s going to be opportunities in any one of those verticals, and then they cross over,” Levin said.
Levin said he is sticking to his passions, including the trading card space, where he has already set up a deal for the new league. He said he also sees an opportunity for games related to what Coker is doing. But these opportunities are wrapped around the core sports opportunity.
“If you look at the global media landscape, sports has completely dominated the landscape, and if you look at the prioritization of the streamers, they’re all spending their money now on sports rather than on original programming,,” Levin said. “It’s why you’re seeing capital allocators, streamers, scripted and unscripted programming, all with sports at the center. When you see what Drive to Survive was able to do for Formula One, you know that that made Formula One literally a mainstream sport in countries where it was a barely a blip on the radar screen, including the U.S.”
He added, “Sports isn’t going anywhere, and in a fractured legacy media landscape, it’s the one shining ray of hope and continued growth.”
Though one is in the works, Levin said he is excited about the opportunity for the crossover of MMA and games.
“There’s always been a very tight relationship. Going back to arcade games, consoles, Atari. Sports titles have always been among the biggest drivers, and so the two have always naturally coexisted, and I think there’s a lot of room for growth as the IP rights holders are realizing,” Levin said.
Levin said that MMA is the third-fastest growing sport in the world, and there is tremendous appetite for it, even beyond the UFC. That means there is a lot of demand and not enough supply.
Coker is best known for discovering new talent and matchmaking, Levin said. He flies around the world and finds the biggest names in the sport before they are famous. He promotes them and they become stars, and he was the first to put women MMA fighters on TV. Coker was also the first to promote MMA in a number of new markets. Coker is assembling his team now.
Levin invested in and was an adviser to Coker’s Strikeforce back in the day, and he also used to represent 20 of the world’s top MMA athletes. He had success in the space, and he also believes Coker is a generational operator. Levin assisted Coker with his Electronic Arts MMA game deal years ago.
Asked why he is doing it, Levin said, “I”m a builder. I love these opportunities where you’re helping with a vision and helping them stand up from scratch. I’m here to serve. I think Griffin gives us wonderful proximity to a host of new types of intellectual properties.”
Disclosure: Peter Levin is a strategic adviser for GamesBeat.