Real American Freestyle Bets on Family-Friendly Combat

Real American Freestyle (RAF) announced a new media rights distribution agreement with Fox Nation in late January. The nearly two-year, 12-card deal follows the six-show extension signed after the promotion’s second event.

While Fox has not released viewership figures, the professional freestyle wrestling property appears to be outpacing external expectations. 

Fox “tells us we’re their number one streaming show on Fox Nation,” Chad Bronstein (co-founder and CEO, RAF) said. And “we got 275 million social views in the 3 days following our latest event, RAF 06.”

But those behind the property have long believed a family-friendly combat concept could work. Unlike boxing and MMA that sell violence, RAF is grounded in Olympic wrestling rules, which allow it to deliver elite competition in a format digestible to consumers of all ages.

“I knew the TAM. Between youth wrestlers and the sport’s alumni base, it’s big enough that we could be successful,” Bronstein said.

The trick is to add enough storytelling and production value to the product to attract mainstream sports fans.

 "Wrestling is getting more popular. It’s the fastest growing participatory sport in America for women,” Bronstein said. “If you create an entertaining product on the main stage, there is an opportunity to get RAF to that unicorn level."

Real American Freestyle was founded by Bronstein, Izzy Martinez, former WCW COO Eric Bischoff, and the late Hulk Hogan in April 2025.

The group, along with its backers (Left Lane Capital led the seed round), knew wrestling purists would embrace a pro league. And there are plenty of them. 

“There's 30% more youth participants in wrestling than there is in lacrosse,” Bronstein said.

The estimated total: 2.5 million.

The challenge was always going to be attracting fans of stick and ball sports, who are unfamiliar with wrestling’s rules and scoring. UFC fans regularly boo when fighters go to the ground for an extended period.

RAF recognizes that education is essential to engaging new audiences. It is working to familiarize new consumers during streaming broadcasts, and through social media and wrestling clinics.

As is matchmaking. Casual followers aren’t going to appreciate a technical chess match.

“It’s about booking high scoring matches that have significant action,” Bronstein said. 

But most importantly, the promotion needs to elevate its entertainment value to attract crossover fans. And that begins with the athletes themselves.

While freestyle wrestling has historically been rooted in respect, RAF is embracing trash-talk and bravado.

“We've said to wrestlers, if you want this property to be successful, we have to have showmanship,” Bronstein said.

Consistent storytelling and high-quality TV production are also necessary to draw new fans in. Bischoff oversees those functions. Martinez handles the matchmaking.

Having household names competing on cards helps too. Michael Chandler, Colby Covington, and Arman Tsarukyan are among the UFC stars who have wrestled for the promotion to date. The latter sparked a wild brawl at RAF 06.

RAF’s entertainment-focused philosophy extends to how it stages shows. The promotion does ‘walk-outs’ for each wrestler and hosts a press conference and fan fest with each event.

“We want to make sure the fans feel like it’s an experience,” Bronstein said.

The company’s domestic media rights deal is a major tailwind. The monetary component of it gives RAF some operating runway (i.e. it’s guaranteed revenue, not a rev-share).

And while its events air in relative obscurity on a niche streaming platform, Fox provides valuable marketing and promotion across its broader ecosystem.

“Fox advertises us everywhere. If you're watching football in January, you would have seen RAF ads during the playoffs. We recently had Henry Cejudo on Fox and Friends,” Bronstein said. “Now, they're also streaming our matches on their YouTube channels. So, we’re getting a lot more reach.”

The broadcast conglomerate is also expected to be strategic as RAF builds out supporting non-live and shoulder programming.

“We’re eventually going to launch a weekly contender series like platform on Fox Nation to develop the talent pipeline, and we’re going to do a reality show separately from that with Fox,” Bronstein said.

RAF will bring in eight figures of revenue in 2026. Media rights are the fast-growing property’s largest source of income. 

Ticketing is second, the promotion now generates upwards of $300,000 per show. RAF sold out its most recent event at Mullet Arena in Tempe, Arizona (~5,500 seats). 

Sponsorships are third. RAF has begun to sign extended non-endemic partnership deals (see: Novartis).

“We’ll get close to as much sponsorship as ticketing revenue this year and then next year sponsorships should be greater,” Bronstein said.

Sports betting (via a partnership with Alt Sports Data), merchandise and trading card sales, and youth clinics are other promising income streams.

“A lot of fans travel to our events. People taking buses with their wrestling camps or their clubs. 50, 60 individuals driving 10 hours,” Bronstein said.

It’s no surprise that many of those individuals are eager to extend their trip to train with the sport’s top athletes.

Logic would suggest high-profile MMA fighters would command sizable paychecks to wrestle, and the emerging leagues that find sustained success tend to pay athletes proportionate to their stage. So, obvious questions exist about RAF’s cost structure.

But Bronstein maintains even the biggest names are being paid far below what they earn in the UFC to appear in RAF, in part because wrestlers only compete for six minutes and can wrestle several times per year.

It enables them to “make additional money while they're training and they can keep their competitive edges going,” Bronstein said. “That helps them in their fighting career.” 

It’s also fair to wonder how often the UFC will let its stars headline for another promotion. The TKO subsidiary must approve outside bouts for its fighters to participate.

However, Bronstein insists that isn’t a threat to the model, either.

“I call it brand continuation because we’re not competitive, we’re not an MMA organization,” Bronstein said. 

It’s an adjacent platform fighters can use to raise their profile amongst a differentiated audience.

While RAF remains in the red, the near one-year-old property is approaching sustainability. 

“We lock in international media rights deals and that will allow us to get very close to profitability,” Bronstein said.

Remember, wrestling is popular in countries around the world and RAF has wrestlers from many of them already under the banner. 

From there, the promotion will look to grow domestic media rights revenue, sponsorship deal values, and a robust youth tournaments business. RAF envisions hosting youth series events on Friday evenings before the pros compete on Saturday.

It also plans to start taking events abroad. Foreign governments have shown a willingness to pay lucrative site fees to bring marquee events to their homeland.