Ariel Helwani encourages PFL to go in another direction, says they "will never come close" to challenging Dana White's UFC with regular season model
Ariel Helwani recently weighed in on PFL's current model and encouraged the promotion to go in another direction if they are serious about challenging Dana White's UFC. The Canadian journalist has been supportive of the promotion but stressed that their global season approach won't lead to success.
The promotion's primary selling point and focus are primarily on the global season, which features a round-robin tournament format followed by a semi-final and final to determine the champions and award a $1 million grand prize. The model is an attempt at having professional sports feel like that of the NFL in MMA, which is a stark contrast to the UFC using their rankings model for Fight Night and pay-per-view fights.
During the latest episode of The Ariel Helwani Show, the Canadian highlighted why the global season isn't viable for a promotion that wants to be viewed as a co-leader. Helwani mentioned that the PFL should shift their focus and go in another direction in order to perhaps become an alternative to White's promotion:
"[PFL] will never come close...because you will get hamstrung by it because you will try to build up this guy vs. this guy and this guy will falter and lose or he'll be banged up...That's not how you sell tickets...pay-per-views...stories and it gets frustrating to watch because I feel like they don't quite get it...And they're trying to shoehorn sports, regular sports, stick and ball sports to the fight game and it's just a whole different beast."
Check out Ariel Helwani's comments regarding PFL challenging Dana White's UFC below:
Ariel Helwani sheds light on why PFL's season model doesn't work compared to Dana White's UFC
In addition to discussing why the PFL's current model isn't viable for tickets and pay-per-view, Ariel Helwani shed light on why their season model doesn't work in MMA when compared to Dana White's UFC.
In the UFC, White doesn't have the global season as a hurdle when booking a main event or title fight and instead uses the rankings to book logical matchups. During the aforementioned clip, Helwani mentioned that the PFL are unable to do so because the season results dictate the matchups:
"The fight game is not built on regular season, standings, playoffs, that's not fighting. That's the NFL...NBA and when you try to equate that model to the fight game, it does not work. It will never work."
Check out the full episode of The Ariel Helwani Show below: