MVP MMA Case Study: Project Brief.

The challenge

On July 30, 2026, MVP and PFL merged, with MVP as the master brand [P5]. On January 1, 2027, PFL becomes MVP MMA [P4]. More than 300 PFL fighters (company-reported) and PFL's fan base have to make that move [P5].

Eight weeks after the merger, the conditions for a smooth crossover were missing:

1. No chief executive. John Martin resigned on September 22 without a company statement or a named successor [P1, S3].
2. No U.S. home. PFL's ESPN deal ends in 2026, and no U.S. partner for MVP MMA was announced [P3, P4].
3. An unproven promise. The company calls itself "fighter-first" but had published no measure behind it [P5].
4. A rival writing the story. UFC CEO Dana White dismissed the merger on the record [P11], and the UFC had just signed two fighters from MVP's first MMA card [S6, P13, P14].

The assignment: plan how MVP moves PFL's fighters and fans into MVP MMA before the crossover, and tell the chief executive what to decide first.

My role

I worked as the whole team: research, source verification, audience data capture and coding, risk analysis, strategy, message and content writing, and the design and build of the document system. Town Squared Strategies is the name I work under.

Approach

The work follows four steps. Each step answers one question and produces its own documents.

What the work found

1. Leadership comes first. No other message has a speaker until a chief executive is named. Search results still listed Martin as CEO, and fans were already supplying their own reasons for the exit [D1, D2].
2. The fighter promise is unknown, not disbelieved. The company owned none of the eight page-one results for "PFL fighter pay," and critical pay coverage led the page [D1]. The phrase "fighter-first" appeared in none of 150 fan comments [D2]. This evidence raised the risk from Medium to High.
3. The UFC story runs the other way. The UFC comparison is the leading frame, but fans mostly mocked White's dismissal and expected talent to move toward MVP [D1, D2]. The counter-example: one of the two UFC signings won a UFC main event on September 5 [P13].
4. The brand name collides in search. "MVP" is also the nickname of fighter Michael "Venom" Page, whose pages took four of the nine page-one results for "MVP MMA" [D1].

What I recommended

1. Name the chief executive by October 16, the night of the next PFL event [P12]. Announce it on owned channels first, then earned media within 48 hours, then paid search.
2. Put numbers behind the promise. Extend two practices from MVP's first MMA card to every fighter: a $40,000 minimum purse and the right to keep personal sponsors [P10, P9]. Pause "fighter-first" until both are public.
3. Hold one line on distribution: "U.S. partner to be announced." Predict nothing.
4. Split the spokesperson roles. The chief executive owns leadership, partners, and fighter terms. Jake Paul owns fan reach and recruiting.
5. Monitor from October 1, tracking twelve watch items, with 24-hour alerts on the most urgent.

How the work was built

1. Every fact has a source. Each claim carries an ID from a 33-entry source log: 14 primary, 17 secondary, and 2 audience datasets. Primary sources govern when sources conflict. Company-reported figures are labeled everywhere.
2. Ratings were tested, not assumed. I captured page one of Google for 15 queries (113 results) and coded 150 Reddit comments across three threads. The coding frame was piloted on 20 comments and revised before full coding. A 20-row sample of each dataset was reviewed and approved.
3. Changes were approved before they were applied. The baseline proposed rating changes. The issue analysis changed only after approval.
4. Weak sources were upgraded. Secondary claims were traced to primary sources where possible: White's remarks to the interview audio, the UFC signings to UFC.com roster pages, and the pay practices to on-record executive statements.
5. Open questions stay open. Anything unconfirmed is stated as a question, not a fact. One remains: how PFL's international media agreements carry the MVP MMA name.

Deliverables

Supporting materials: a public blog post, "The PFL-MVP merger gave MVP MMA the roster. Now it needs a corner.", that turns the findings into commentary for a general reader; the Source Log; a Data Citations page that traces each of the blog's search and Reddit claims to its data rows; an Integration Timeline with explainer; four drafts (leadership page, press release, media pitch, and fighter pay page); two measurement workflows; and the Town Squared Strategies brand kit.

Where to start

1. Five minutes: this brief, then the Executive Briefing for the recommendation.
2. Fifteen minutes: add the Audience and Narrative Baseline Findings for the evidence, and the Integration Timeline for the plan at a glance.
3. Full review: the Strategic Communications Plan and Messaging Architecture, then the drafts to see the strategy turned into ready-to-use copy.

Scope changes

Limits

1. Public information only. The case has no access to company data, contracts, or people.
2. Observational audience data. One search location, one date, and three Reddit threads. The data describes what was visible on September 25, 2026, not the full fan base.
3. Fixed cutoff. The facts stop at September 25, 2026. Later developments belong in addenda.