Beginning this month, Professional Fighters League (PFL) is partnering with Flagship Solutions Group to further develop PFL’s SmartCage and Fighter Performance Rating technology
With a roster boasting MMA talents such as Kayla Harrison and Ray Cooper III, Professional Fighters League (PFL) is one of the best-known MMA organizations in the world today, with 25% percent of its fighters independently ranked in the top-25 of the world. PFL is watched live in 160 countries by 600 million MMA fans, via ESPN, ESPN+, and streaming. PFL’s investors include Ares Capital, Luxor Capital, Elysian Park Ventures, Swan Ventures, Knighthead, Legends, and several NBA, MLB, and NHL team owners.
Flagship Solutions Group
Flagship Solutions Group is an IBM Gold Business Partner that provides IBM solutions, managed services, and cloud solutions worldwide. This includes data center strategic planning and hybrid cloud implementations based on a wide range of assessments that look at virtualization, server consolidation, security, and infrastructure-focused integration. In addition, Flagship Solutions Group provides Cyber Security and Data Analytics as a service to major companies across various industries.
Flagship Solutions Group will leverage IBM’s cloud and Watson technologies to further develop PFL’s SmartCage technology and Fighter Performance Rating to maximize the value of its data-centric approach for fight fans, PFL’s roster of athletes and PFL’s portfolio of blue-chip partners, which includes sponsors such as Anheuser-Busch, IBM, GEICO, DraftKings, Bose, Socios.com, Air Force Reserve, and US Marine Corps.
The PFL proprietary SmartCage data and analytics platform powers real-time betting and provides a next-gen viewing experience. The insights gathered from SmartCage technology and Cagenomics data will be enhanced with IBM Watson machine learning to showcase what is taking place inside the cage and deliver accurate matchup outcome predictions for MMA fans around the world.
PFL sees a bright future ahead for their 2022 season. “The Professional Fighters League is pioneering the future of MMA with proprietary technology that enables showcasing the sport like never before, and we’re thrilled to expand our partnership with Flagship Solutions Group and IBM for the 2022 season,” says PFL CEO Peter Murray. “Integration of fighter data and fight analytics within our live broadcast and streaming events has created an immersive next-gen experience for MMA fans.”
Flagship Solutions Group agrees. “Flagship is honored to support PFL’s tremendous growth and success with technology solutions powered by Flagship’s cloud capabilities under our “We Run IT, You Use IT” campaign,” says Flagship Solutions Group CEO Mark Wyllie.
Professional Fighters League
As mentioned earlier, a unique aspect of PFL is that it is the first and only MMA league with a season format. Fighters from around the world compete in a regular season, and then four competitors in each division (Featherweight, Heavyweight 265, Light Heavyweight 205, Lightweight 155, Welterweight 170, and Women’s Lightweight 155) who earn the most points in the regular season advance to the win-or-go-home playoffs. After that is the PFL World Championship, where each winner goes home with a prize of one million dollars and a championship belt.