Super Fight League is heading to YouTube to reach fight fans.
The upstart India-based promotion today announced a three-year exclusive deal that will put all of its live event streams on YouTube.
The first is slated for March 11, which features a headliner between veteran fighters Bob Sapp and James Thompson.
All SFL events will be available on a dedicated channel at youtube.com/sfl.
"This unique initiative by SFL to partner with YouTube will give the league a global reach on a single platform," SFL founding chairman Raj Kundra stated. "This will allow MMA fans anywhere in the world to view the action on-demand as per their convenience, thus making the SFL channel on YouTube the biggest virtual MMA arena in the world. This strategic tie up will give SFL the opportunity to give MMA fans worldwide the best fight night events with some of the industry's best MMA fighters."
SFL bills itself as Indian's first pro MMA organization. In addition to Kundra, executives include Sanjay Dutt (co-founder), Ken Pavia (CEO) and Daniel Isaac (COO).
The first event, "SFL1," takes place at Andheri Sports Complex in Mumbai. While heavy on local talent, the fight card features a super-heavyweight headliner between Sapp (11-10) and Thompson (16-14).
Thompson recently ended a 1-8 skid with a submission victory over Mariusz Pudzianowski. (A subsequent rematch that Thompson lost in controversial fashion ultimately was overturned to a no-contest due to what officials called a scoring error). Sapp, meanwhile, was once of Japan's biggest stars and novelty acts, but he's just 1-7 over the past three years.