Sports Media Report
Today, the Professional Fighters League (PFL) and Kiswe Mobile (Kiswe) announced that the PFL will leverage Kiswe’s technology to stream their 2018 Thursday night fight events in multiple languages around the world. The unique partnership continues PFL’s commitment to provide a best-in-class fan experience to the over 300 million MMA fans around the world. PFL’s fans can now experience the thrill of live-streamed PFL events in their own languages, narrated by their favorite local MMA experts and social influencers.
“PFL will continue to embrace the power of industry-leading technology to enhance our events for fans in the arena and the millions watching at home,” said Pete Murray, CEO of PFL. “Our partnership with Kiswe allows us to optimize the experience for MMA fans across the globe and allows our viewers to connect more deeply with the league, our fighters and the can’t-miss action we deliver on Thursday nights.”
Kiswe technology has already been used to provide real-time Spanish commentary from retired MMA fighter Manny Rodriguez for the live action that took place at PFL1, the league’s season opener on June 7that the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden, PFL2, the second regular season event at the Chicago Theatre, and PFL3, the third regular season event at The Smith Center at The George Washington University. As the season unfolds, PFL will add commentary in additional languages, including Russian and Portuguese, for the global audiences who cheer on PFL’s roster of 72 elite international fighters.
“Multi-language commentary is a great tool to engage a global audience, and we are proud to help the Professional Fighters League reach their worldwide audience more effectively,” said Mike Schabel, CEO of Kiswe Mobile. “Using cloud-scale video technology, we can now help PFL and other content owners transform their live global feeds into streams that are relevant for each audience segment, at a scale, cost, and reliability that has never before been achieved.”
The 2018 PFL season features 126 fights on Thursday nights in seven regular-season events, bracket-style “win or go home” playoffs, and a $10 million post-season prize pool—the largest prize pool in the history of MMA. The season began with 12 athletes in each of six different weight-classes. Eight fighters from each class will earn their way into the playoff round, and one fighter in each division will earn the title of champion.
U.S.-based and international fans can watch all PFL regular season, playoff, and championship fights—over 66 hours of live action—for free. In the United States, all of the PFL regular season events air live on Thursday in primetime exclusively on NBCSN, and stream live on NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, and pflmma.com. Outside the U.S., Facebook streams up to six hours of free, live coverage for each event. In the U.S., fans can watch the first three hours of coverage of each event on Facebook.
