MUMBAI: Nimbus Sport has bagged the television production rights for the new season of the Super Fight League (SFL) starting 29 March. The deal with India?s only professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) property, SFL, is for a period of five years.

ESPN Star Sports had on Wednesday announced that it has acquired the broadcast rights to the event for five years.

The Fight League has had a successful run across four seasons of stadium events and an MMA reality show with a focus on developing world-class Indian fighters and giving them a platform to showcase their skills.
The plan is to bring fans closer to the action and to this effect, the league will be produced in High Definition with a significant upgrade in the camera setup. Innovations will include a super slow motion high definition camera that will vividly capture the fights and bring action replays to life.

SFL chairman Raj Kundra said, ?We are delighted to partner with Nimbus Sport to produce the live feed of the Super Fight League (SFL). Best-in-class television production is key to growing a sport and the proven international expertise of Nimbus Sport was the clincher. We can?t wait to bring to our fans some of the biggest MMA stars in an innovative, slickly produced new season.?

Nimbus Sport COO Sunil Manocha said, "Our legacy of producing top-notch live feeds for sports events continues with the signing of this new deal and the SFL is a worthy addition to our bouquet. Through the commitment of its organizers, SFL has quickly established itself as the pre-eminent pro Fight League in India. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to present this action packed property in a manner that befits the best global standards of production for the sport."

MUMBAI: Continuing its buying spree, sports broadcaster ESPN Star Sports said it has acquired the broadcast rights of Indian Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) property Super Fight League (SFL) for a period of five years.

Neo Prime was the incumbent broadcast rights holder of the SFL.

ESS will cover 23 SFL Fight Nights live on a fortnightly basis from the 2013-14 season which kicks off in Mumbai on 29 March and will continue all year round till March end 2014.

Launched in 2012, SFL is a brainchild of Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra and Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt. This year a total of around 250 fighters, male and female, from India and abroad will fight it out for the coveted Championship Title Belt and the right to be crowned SFL World Champion.

This season will see participants from top notch MMA playing countries like Japan, Brazil and USA. A lot of NRI MMA fighters from countries like Australia, UK, Canada, Germany and USA will also be in seen in action.

Speaking on the occasion, ESPN Software India COO Vijay Rajput said, ?We believe in offering the best of sporting content to the Indian sports fans across genres and this acquisition firmly reiterates our constant endeavor in this direction. This acquisition enables us to expand our content in MMA fighting and we think this property will get a lot of traction with fight fans across the country. We will soon start a high decibel marketing campaign across our entire network leveraging top fighters of the league and Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt to build up to the season launch.?

SFL Founder Chairman Raj Kundra said, ?The broadcast tie-up with ESPN Star Sports will provide a major boost to our efforts to promote this property across South Asia. We are very enthused with the response that SFL has been able to generate in its very first year of operation. The league is today ranked amongst the top 5 MMA leagues in the world. As a result, we have seen a lot of interest from leading MMA fighters to compete in SFL season 2. Good quality fighters from India and abroad will help the league reach new highs. We are also expanding in a big way. The new season will see 11 title belts on offer, up from 5 title belts in the first edition. Male participants will fight it out across 8 weight categories from bantamweight to heavyweight while the ladies? section will see action in 3 weight categories from flyweight to featherweight."

In the Bantamweight category for males, current title holder Anup Kumar has been given the top ranking. In the Featherweight category, Bharat Khandare (current title holder) tops the ranking. In Lightweight, Rajinder Singh (current title holder) is ranked No.1. In Welterweight, Shyam Prasad (current title holder) is at the top.

In the new categories introduced this year, John Troyer has been ranked highest in the Middleweight category. Goran Reljic is ranked second in the Light heavyweight category. Daniel Amar Singh has been ranked highest in the Heavyweight category. In the female section, Sanja Sucevic has been ranked highest in the Flyweight category. In Bantamweight, Hanna Sillen has been given the highest billing. In Featherweight, Puja Kadian is the favourite for the title.

ESS, which is now part of Star network in India, has been on a buying spree ever since it became a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corp. The broadcaster acquired BCCI rights and followed that up by retaining England Cricket Board (ECB) rights. The broadcaster then went on to acquire rights for English Premier League (EPL), Hockey India League (HIL), Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL), Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), and FA Cup.

MUMBAI: NBC Sports Network has entered into a three-year partnership with World Series of Fighting (WSOF) to deliver live, world championship Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fight programming, beginning with the promotion?s second event, "WSOF 2," live 23 March.

The agreement calls for a minimum of six live events annually on the national television platform that reaches over 80 million homes.

Additionally, later this year, NBCSports.com will live stream World Series of Fighting events via TV Everywhere.

"We are thrilled to call NBC Sports Network the home of World Series of Fighting," said World Series of Fighting President and six-time world kickboxing champion, Ray Sefo. "This partnership will allow us to build the World Series of Fighting brand of world-class MMA competition before a dedicated national audience of passionate sports fans and place our athletes on the big stage that they deserve."

The inaugural World Series of Fighting 1 aired live on NBC Sports Network on 3 November last year.