Goodwin Advises Most Valuable Promotions on Merger With Professional Fighters League to Create Global Combat Sports Platform

The Sports and Technology Companies teams advised Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), co-founded by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian, on its merger with the Professional Fighters League (PFL) to create a new global combat sports and entertainment company operating under the MVP master brand. The combined company brings together boxing, mixed martial arts, live events, athlete development, media, and worldwide content distribution under a next generation fighter-first organization. With nearly 400 elite athletes, including world champions, titleholders, contenders, and emerging stars, MVP will promote some of the world’s biggest combat sports events.

As part of the transaction, existing PFL shareholders 885 Capital and affiliated entities of Knighthead Capital Management are becoming founding investors in the combined company and committed new capital to support its continued growth. MVP plans to invest aggressively in both boxing and MMA.

The Goodwin team was led by Joshua L. Eisenson, Nathan E. Hagler, Brett Jackson, Ben Kloss, and Steven Moldavskiy (Corporate); Kelsey Lemaster and Kate Blansett (Tax); Chris Steinroeder and Christina Flynn (Debt); Lee Douthitt (Labor); Andy Barton and Rahat Tariq (Benefits); Brady P. P. Cummins, Kevin Walsh, and Michael Casaburi (Antitrust); Stephen Charkoudian and Jason Yeoun (IP); Omer Tene (Privacy & Data Security); Justin Pierce and Nick Ognibene (Global Trade); Ai Tajima, Shelby Hecht, and Minji Kim (Insurance); with invaluable assistance from Troy Root (Paralegal).

Former Goodwin attorney, Rick Torres, led the transaction as MVP’s general counsel.

The sports group at Moelis & Company LLC served as financial advisor to MVP.

For more information, please read the press release.