Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), which has quietly signed 46 female fighters, including 16 reigning women's champions, announced the launch of MVPW, its women-led boxing platform, as part of three-year distribution deal with ESPN in March. MVPW will promote a year-round programming calendar showcasing the sport’s top competitors. 

The company’s intent is clear.

MVP is working to represent “the entire ecosystem of talent ensuring that it has a cohesive, premium product distribution partners, sponsors, and fans worldwide can get behind and support,” Nakisa Bidarian (co-founder and CEO, Most Valuable Promotions) said. 

The bet is if successful, there will be media rights partners willing to pay up to reach their Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha audience come the early 2030s. 

MVPW-02 takes place in the Infosys Theater at Madison Square Garden on Friday night (April 17). Unified super featherweight world champion Alycia “The Bomb” Baumgardner headlines against challenger Bo Mi Re Shin.

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Historically speaking, boxing promoters paid little strategic attention to female fighters. Eddie Hearn aside, most built businesses exclusively on men or spent relatively little time pushing women under their banner. 

That is the lane MVP has stepped into. 

Where others “saw a lack of opportunity, we saw massive opportunity,” Bidarian said.  

Remember, the MVP CEO enjoyed a front row seat as women’s mixed martial arts reached the pinnacle of mainstream success. Bidarian was CFO of the UFC during Ronda Rousey’s rise to fame in the mid-2010s.

“She was actually the face of MMA, male or female,” Bidarian said. “Bigger than Conor McGregor.” 

Bidarian and his partner Jake Paul (hence the promotion’s young audience) launched MVP in August of 2021 with women’s boxing as a core strategic pillar and the belief there would be a market for the sport if it were promoted regularly, marketed across social channels, and distributed with the best broadcast partners. 

“It's about positioning the athletes and the product in a way that fans respect what it is,” Bidarian said. “A big part of that is driven by simply giving the fighters a platform, the push, the storytelling, and consistent messaging [to fans] as to why the fights are important.”

So, MVP scheduled Amanda Serrano as the co-main event on several of Jake Paul’s early pay-per-view events introducing her to the masses.

“Look at the last 100 top-selling boxing pay-per-view events and see if there was ever a co-main event between two women before…Promoters have never given that opportunity, that exposure to the women’s side of the business,” Bidarian said.  

Until now.

MVP subsequently booked Serrano as a headliner opposite Katie Taylor. 

MVP entered women’s boxing slowly. Serrano was still the promotion’s only female fighter when it signed Shadasia Green in early 2023. 

However, the company has rapidly expanded its roster over the last 18 months.  

"We have an opportunity to create a reference brand that represents the best females in the sport every single night, and it's not about creating a UBO [or Unified Boxing Organization] as much as it is that the fans know they’re getting the best product, they’re seeing the best athletes with MVP; [regardless of] whether the belt at stake is WBC, WBO, IBF, WBA or an MVP belt, if we decide to go that way,” Bidarian said. 

Implicit in that last point is a shift away from independent sanctioning bodies and toward brand-driven trust. 

If MVP’s league rollup strategy sounds familiar, that is because it’s not too different from what TKO is working to execute with Zuffa Boxing. However, unlike on the men’s side, where promotional fragmentation is deeply entrenched, women’s boxing remains structurally unencumbered. That makes talent aggregation far more achievable, at least in the near term, and provides for attractive risk-adjusted returns. 

The consolidation of fighters has already started to create leverage for MVP. Mikaela Mayer, a top 10 pound for pound women’s boxer, recently signed with the promotion. It now has six of the top 10 pound for pound fighters in the world and expects to push that total to eight or nine before the end of 2026. 

Having all that talent under the banner gives MVP the opportunity to schedule the biggest fights in the sport (assuming the fighters want to participate). The promise of consistently being able to book matchups between top ranked fighters is what drew the interest of its existing media partners. 

“Think about ESPN leaving boxing and the way they re-entered the sport,” Bidarian said. “It wasn't with a men's strategy. It was championship, elite women's boxing that got the network excited.” 

The DIS subsidiary will carry MVPW shows across platforms. 

There will be “at least four linear shows a year to start and that number will grow annually,” Bidarian said. 

MVP also announced a multi-year broadcast partnership with Sky Sports in the U.K. 

“We wanted to be with the best sports distributor in that market,” Bidarian said. 

While finding linear distribution is a positive development, MVP recognizes that it’s going to take time for women’s boxing to command a lucrative broadcast rights deal.  

“This is a five-to-seven-year play,” Bidarian said.

So, MVP is beginning to explore raising outside investment capital for the first time. The combat sports and live events company has generated hundreds of millions in revenue to date and has ‘never lost money’.  

The bulk of those revenues were tied to live rights (live events and sponsorships also generate income). So, it’s certainly fair to wonder where investor returns will come from if the NFL captures an increasingly large share of the overall media pie in the years ahead as expected. 

But Bidarian remains convinced there will be broadcast dollars available, both domestically and abroad.

“Every property that comes up for a new deal continues to see increases and on the boxing side specifically, every promotion that has been talked about being challenged has signed new deals,” he said. “There’s also going to be different forms of media who want live sports that resonate and engage people.” 

Remember, MVP, via its association with Paul, reaches and appeals to a different audience than most established sports properties.  

“We’re 100% focused on Gen Z and Gen Alpha,” Bidarian said. “Our storytelling is digital first. It's short form. It's trendsetting… We try to approach the demographic in a way that it actually appeals to them and the hope is they become organic fans of what we're doing long-term.” 

If that strategy plays out, MVP will enjoy a level of influence over a sport that few entities have. 

ICYMI: Debut Episode of JaneWallStreet’s ATT: LOVB Chief Growth Officer Stephanie Alger

On the debut episode of JaneWallStreet Presents: At The Table, a bi-weekly podcast exploring the intersection of sports, media, and finance through the lens of (mostly) female decision makers, JaneWallStreet Executive Chair Deirdre Lester sits down with League One Volleyball (LOVB) Chief Growth Officer Stephanie Alger.

Alger explains why the property scaled a youth ecosystem before launching its professional product. She also outlines how LOVB is approaching market expansion and discussed how establishing consistent broadcast windows that drive habitual viewership has aided efforts to grow fandom.

📺 Watch the full video on JohnWallStreet’s YouTube Page.
🎧 Listen on Spotify.