CEO Q&A: Inside Mixed Martial Arts Group Ltd. (NYSE American: MMA) - Converting Fan Energy into Recurring Revenue

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 20, 2025 / Hawk Point Media is sitting down with Nick Langton, CEO of Mixed Martial Arts Group Ltd. (NYSE American:MMA), a company on a mission to transform the fastest-growing sport in the world from a high-energy spectator experience into a fully connected, global participation platform. With triple-digit revenue growth, high-profile investors like Conor McGregor, and a leadership team deeply invested in the company's future, MMA is building the digital infrastructure that connects hundreds of millions of fans to training opportunities - whether in a local gym or online with world-class coaches.

Today, we explore how Mixed Martial Arts Group Ltd. (NYSE Amer: MMA) is unlocking growth, scaling rapidly, and positioning itself to become the central hub of the martial arts economy. For clarity, whenever "MMA" appears in the Q&A below, it refers to the company and its stock symbol - not the sport. Here's what the CEO had to say about it all:

HPM: Nick, for readers who may be new to the story - what exactly is Mixed Martial Arts Group, Ltd. (NYSE Amer: MMA), and what's the bigger mission behind what you're building?

Nick Langton: Yeah, look - Mixed Martial Arts Group Ltd. is building the rails for the future of combat sports. The big idea is simple: take the world's fastest-growing sports vertical and give it the connective tissue it's never had. Our mission at MMA is to convert an estimated 640 million global fans into participants at scale, so if you've ever watched a fight and thought "I want to try that, I want to get fit"," we're the company that takes you from the couch to the mats, whether that's in your local academy or online with elite coaches.

Another core of our business is BJJLink - our integrated platform that runs academies more profitably and keeps students engaged longer. It's membership management, billing, scheduling, communications, and analytics flowing into a member-facing experience. When you replace a patchwork of tools with one backbone, gyms grow healthier businesses, and students stick around. That's how you turn a powerful niche into a mainstream movement, and that's the engine we're scaling now. With tens of thousands of students already paying their monthly membership to their local academy through BJJLink, we have deep commercial validation, which is growing strongly every month.

Looking ahead, we're preparing to launch our Community and Fan platform, designed to be the first fully integrated technology to bring together fans, fighters, coaches, gym owners, and brands into a single, monetized ecosystem. This will be our mass market product, targeting over 640 million global fans of MMA.

HPM: You've described your company, MMA, as "building the rails" for combat sports. Why is now the right time for this, and what makes your platform the solution for that demand?

Nick Langton: When you look at what we've built and the gap it fills, the connection is obvious. We're taking a fragmented, very fast-growing sport and giving it a single backbone that serves everyone in the ecosystem. The timing couldn't be better because the sport has never had more global visibility, yet the infrastructure to convert that interest into participation just hasn't existed, until now. You've got hundreds of millions of fans watching, following fighters, and engaging with the culture, but when they decide they want to actually train, there's no easy on-ramp or streamlined path to get them in the door. We bridge that gap.

Together, BJJLink and our renowned "Warrior Training Program" are the connective tissue between that fan energy and the gyms, coaches, and communities providing pathways to lifelong participation. We're solving two problems at once: making it easier for fans to take their first step into training, and giving academies new members and the tools to run more efficiently, retain customers, and grow revenue. That combination is powerful because it aligns everyone's interests, fans get access, gyms get customers, and the sport gets stronger. That's why we see this as not just great product-market fit, but a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the future of martial arts participation. And our results and industry impact are proving that.

HPM: Let's look at those. Your recent growth numbers for BJJLink are eye-catching. What's underneath that momentum?

Nick Langton: A lot of hard work. But the bottom line is that the momentum is strong because BJJLink addresses a lot of real pain points. For years, operators juggled spreadsheets, texts, and outdated software. With BJJLink, they get a single, integrated system that handles the admin and unlocks better student engagement. When communication is seamless, scheduling is easy, and payments are reliable, you don't just reduce friction, you increase retention, training frequency, and lifetime value. That's why we're seeing a flywheel: faster onboarding, higher stickiness, more natural upsells.

And the data backs it up. For the seven months ended July 31, BJJLink delivered 128% annualized revenue growth, with SaaS subscription revenue up 188% annualized. Those aren't vanity stats; they're proof that academies are adopting the platform, students are staying active, and the model compounds month over month. That's the signal we wanted before stepping on the gas, and we've got it.

HPM: Helping fuel your mission is the star power in and around MMA. How do Conor McGregor, a lead investor, and UFC broadcaster Laura Sanko joining your Board translate into growth?

Nick Langton: Look, Conor is more than a famous name backing our mission; he's an investor, a major shareholder, and a passionate advocate for what we're building. His reach is global, his brand instincts are elite, and his ability to command attention accelerates everything we do - partners take the call, sponsors engage faster, and media coverage scales. That's a multiplier you can't manufacture.

And we've just added another superstar, Laura Sanko, to our Board. She's a UFC analyst and broadcaster, a former pro fighter, and a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Laura brings huge credibility with practitioners and reach with mainstream fans, which are exactly the attributes you want when you're engaging a global fanbase and driving mass participation in the sport. Combine that with an executive team that includes industry leaders like John Kavanagh and Rich Chou, and we have the deep credibility and elite network that gives us a powerful edge in distribution, brand trust, and the ability to identify and attract incredible growth opportunities, like our partnership with UFC Gym.

HPM: Paint the market picture. How big is the opportunity, and what's the strategy to capture it?

Nick Langton: The top of the funnel is massive, hundreds of thousands of martial arts academies globally, and a fan base measured in the hundreds of millions. Our strategy is to partner, not own. Think about what OpenTable did for restaurants: a technology layer that helps owner-operators acquire, onboard, and retain customers without heavy capex. That's us for martial arts. We connect fans to training, make onboarding seamless for gyms, and monetize through subscriptions and an expanding stack of services.

Leverage matters, and our partnerships give us an abundance of it. UFC GYM selected BJJLink as the backbone for its new Brazilian jiu-jitsu franchise expansion, and forty-five new academies are slated to open in 2025. That's a premium pipeline that onboards straight into recurring, high-margin revenue. Then layer the UFC's new U.S. media rights cycle with Paramount/CBS beginning in 2026, and we'll see huge visibility and engagement spikes, and we're positioned right where interest becomes action. The footprint we've built is ideally positioned to leverage this timing for massive growth; we literally couldn't be more excited.

HPM: Let's talk unit economics and how the model scales. Explain it?

Nick Langton: We're a subscription-driven business. Customers join through our ecosystem to train in the gym or online with top-tier coaches. Price points range from entry-level digital access to premium, immersive, five-day-a-week programs. The blend lets us meet people where they are - budget, schedule, and ambition - and then graduate them up the value ladder as their engagement deepens.

On the operator side, the economics improve as adoption grows. Software revenue is very sticky, margins expand as the digital mix rises, and our customer acquisition cost remains attractive because content and community convert better than ads. Add in distribution scale from branded rollouts like UFC GYM, and you're talking about recurring revenue that stacks predictably while we unlock new monetization layers such as e-commerce, athlete tools, and advanced engagement within the same user base. That's how you compound.

HPM: Investors love seeing "skin in the game." How aligned is leadership, and where does MMA go over the next five years?

Nick Langton: Alignment is everything. In June, our Chairman, Vaughn Taylor, and I converted $250,000 of prior loans into equity, and having invested in essentially all the prior financing rounds, we know that our success is fully aligned with all our shareholders' success. Around that, we completed a $5 million underwritten offering earmarked for product development, marketing, and scale. That combination of personal commitment plus fresh growth capital lets us execute without compromise.

Five years out, I see our company, MMA, as the hub of a connected, global martial arts economy. Today, we're scaling in gym training and Brazilian jiu-jitsu academy growth, but the platform is built to expand across other disciplines and stack new services that deepen engagement and increase Average Revenue Per User. The outcome is millions of participants training, competing, and interacting on our platform, many of them starting as casual fans and becoming lifelong practitioners. That's the leap from strong niche to truly mainstream, and we intend to be the company that makes it happen.

HPM: Last question - if you had to sum it up, why should investors be paying attention to MMA right now?

Nick Langton: Well, first, you've got the sport. It's one of the fastest-growing in the world, with global media visibility set to surge again in 2026. Then you've got the mission of converting hundreds of millions of fans into active participants, which nobody else is set up to do at scale. Add to that proven growth engines, triple-digit SaaS revenue growth, backing from the biggest names in the sport, and a leadership team with deep sector expertise and heavy "skin in the game," and you've got a story that's really compelling and being executed on right now.

The reality is, we're still in the early innings. Market share is there for the taking, and our platform is built to capture it by leveraging existing "owner operator" gym and coaching inventory without the overhead or slow cycles you'd see in other rollouts. Every new academy we onboard, every new fan we convert, increases the network effect and extends our first-mover advantage. For investors who want exposure to a sector with explosive participation growth, recurring revenue, and a global runway, our company, MMA Ltd., isn't just a good story; it's the one to watch right now.

*This interview is reprinted with permission from Hawk Point Media Group, LLC.

ABOUT UFC GYM®

UFC GYM® is the first major brand extension of UFC®, the world's premier MMA organization, created in alliance with New Evolution Ventures™ (NeV), developers of many of the world's most successful fitness brands. As the first to unite the benefits of MMA with fitness, the brand is not what you expect, and more than you can imagine. UFC GYM's TRAIN DIFFERENT® approach provides members with the ultimate fitness experience and programming that secures results for all ages and training levels. With over 150 locations opened and 700 additional locations currently in development globally, UFC GYM has revolutionized the fitness industry and positively impacted countless lives worldwide. UFC GYM offers the opportunity to own and operate a franchise domestically and internationally. For more information, please visit www.ufcgym.com.

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This third-party interview contains statements that reflect the views of the company's management at the time of the discussion. All information referenced has been previously disclosed by the company through SEC filings, press releases, or other publicly available sources. No new, nonpublic, or material information is being announced in this interview. The content is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice.

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SOURCE: Mixed Martial Arts Group Ltd.

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