SVG Sit-Down: PFL EP George Greenberg Reflects on Inaugural Challenger Series, Looks Toward 2022 Regular Season Focus on storytelling, advanced technology mark both efforts By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Monday, April 11, 2022 - 2:01 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The Professional Fighters League wrapped its inaugural eight-week Challenger Series on Friday night at Universal Studios with a total of nine fighters earning PFL contracts. The series, which was live-streamed on FuboTV in the U.S., offered an American Idol meets MMA format with plenty of betting content mixed in.
From its custom-built studio at Universal Studios in Orlando, PFL produced eight weeks of fight broadcasts that diverged greatly from its technology-heavy regular-season coverage. The production team, led by Executive Producer George Greenberg, put the focus squarely on the underdog stories of the fighters in the cage and brought in celebrity judges Vitor Belfort, Randy Couture, Ray Lewis, and Tyron Woodley to add a new flavor to the Challenger Series broadcasts.
Inside PFL's production truck at Universal Studios for the Challenger Series
PFL once again enlisted industry veteran First in TV President Larry Rogers as tech producer for the Challenger Series. On the facilities side, the league relied on BitFire to handle transmission of multiple video feeds and comms channels between the primary F&F Productions mobile units in Orlando and multiple operators working remotely, including SMT graphics and scoring systems located in Durham, NC. PFL also deployed a total of 14 cameras (four handhelds, one jib, three robos, one POV, three remote camera sources via BitFire, two P1s) to cover the action.
SVG sat down with Greenberg prior to the PFL Challenger Series finale to discuss highlights of the series, how he blends sports and entertainment within the broadcasts, the integration of betting and the big board, and why data and technology continues to be at the core of PFL's production philosophy.
What differentiates the Challenger Series from the PFL regular season and other MMA fight broadcasts?
The format of the show is a combination of a traditional fight mixed with America's Got Talent and American Idol. And we also have betting mixed in here, which has been a fabulous experience for us.
For betting, we've developed a big board very similar to horse racing, and one of our producers, Josh Fowler, has taken that under his wing. We've also been able to do fantastic things with Ian Parker, our betting expert and a former MMA manager. He has been a wonderful addition for our editorial.
One of the great things we're doing is thinking differently about how we use talent in real time within our fights. Traditionally, you have a play-by-play, and you have a color man. We have those [elements], but we try to be much more fluid in how we use them during the fight.
PFL looked to use its on-air talent in a more fluid way for the Challenger Series.
We bring in our celebrity panelists, including Ray Lewis, Tyron Woodley, Randy Couture, Vitor Belfort. We show them in boxes [on the screen] in the middle of the fight, and they add tremendously to the editorial content of our show. We don't do them just between rounds; we can slide them in during the fights in real time.
We also have Ian to talk betting, and then we have one virtual guest each week, [including] Jeremy Piven, Jarvis Landry, and Lolo Jones. So now there are six or seven different announcers contributing as the fight goes on. They're contributing in real time, and we don't wait for breaks, so that creates a very different dynamic.
It has been a really cool combination of entertainment and sports celebrities combined with MMA traditionalists to produce a product that has been very fluid and one that's very different from anything people have seen in MMA before.
Can you describe the studio setup at Universal Studios and how it differs from the PFL setup in Atlantic City last season?
The studio is essentially a big open box, so we had to bring everything in. Larry Rogers is tremendous technical producer, and he has built out a totally self-contained infrastructure.
Technical producer Larry Rogers on hand in Orlando during the PFL Challenger Series.
We parked our two trucks there and built the entire studio and set from scratch. We had to build the cage, as well as a complete stage for the celebrity panelists. And then we had to bring in the connectivity for BitFire, which allows us access to our graphics partner SMT, our virtual guests, and our remote editors on the East and West Coasts.
We brought everything in ourselves and built the infrastructure to the point where it's every bit as powerful, maybe a bit more powerful than what we have done in the past at remotes. It has been a forward-thinking experience in terms of using the cloud to pass material very fluidly to our editors and SMT and the rest of our team. It has been a great way to extend our reach with fewer people onsite.
PFL built out a full fight cage and studio in Orlando for the Challenger Series
How did the idea of a big board come about to integrate wagering data into the broadcast?
The initial idea of a big board came from [PFL CEO] Pete Murray. Then producer Josh Fowler developed this vision of a real-time data-centric big board that could get us as close as possible to what they have in horse racing, which is absolutely the most advanced when it comes to real-time betting. He created a template and gave it to our animations partner Big Block to design the actual visual presentation.
Then we handed it over to [PFL SVP, Business Development,] Robbie Louthan and his team at SMT to develop the data component. SMT is far and away the best at what they do. All we had to do was present our concept visually and editorial
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
SVG Sit-Down: PFL EP George Greenberg Reflects on Inaugural Challenger Series, Looks Toward 2022 Regular Season Focus on storytelling, advanced technology mark both efforts By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
