‘Babysitter to the Stars’ Burt Watson promoted to Alliance MMA, Executive Vice President, Operations
Alliance MMA Announces Burt Watson to Take Charge in New Leadership Position
Key Operations Role to Intensify Focus on Revenue and Profitability
The man known as ‘The Babysitter to the Stars,’ Burt Watson, has been promoted, effectively immediately, to Executive Vice President, Operations, at Alliance MMA.
Alliance MMA, Inc. (“Alliance MMA” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ:AMMA), a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) company that brings together leading regional productions to build the next generation of MMA champions, made the announcement Friday morning.
The newly formed position was necessitated by the Company’s rapidly expanding domestic footprint which now includes 9 branded regional MMA promotions, each strategically positioned in the top media markets across the country.
“We are extremely gratified that Burt will now be applying his well-seasoned promotional experience and extraordinary leadership skills, working in close collaboration with our General Managers, towards providing direct oversight of the operational and financial performance of our regional MMA events,” said Paul Danner, Chief Executive Officer of Alliance MMA.
“Based on his outstanding track record, I have complete trust and confidence that Burt will excel in this new assignment, adeptly assuming ownership of the overall customer experience, including standardizing performance expectations, and persistently pursuing process improvements by identifying and deploying best business practices across the enterprise.”
Burt Watson’s résumé
Watson began his career in boxing more than 30 years ago coordinating events that involved boxing stars Mike Tyson, Oscar De La Hoya, Roy Jones, Sugar Ray Leonard, Bernard Hopkins and Wladimir Klitschko. Prior to joining Alliance MMA as its Director of Fighter Relations, Watson was the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Event Coordinator for 14 years where he was intimately involved in producing some of their most memorable events.
Preceding to his association with the UFC organization, Watson served as the business manager for legendary fighter “Smokin’ Joe” Frazier for several years, and coordinated a promotional tour featuring renowned boxing greats Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, George Foreman and Ken Norton. Throughout his illustrious career, Watson was responsible for coordinating televised sporting events featured on numerous networks including ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, HBO, Showtime, USA, BET and Telemundo.
“I am thoroughly and sincerely exhilarated over the prospect of assuming such a prominent leadership role with Alliance MMA”, said Watson. “I have developed close personal and professional working relationships with both fighters and General Managers since the Company formally launched last fall, and I am now looking forward with great anticipation to devoting my many years of directly related experience towards ensuring we scale our promotional operations as quickly and effectively as possible, all while maintaining laser focus on achieving corporate revenue and profitability objectives.”
Alliance MMA
Alliance MMA currently operates nine regional MMA promotions across the country: Philadelphia-based Cage Fury Fighting Championship (CFFC), Seattle-based Combat Games MMA (COGA), Indiana-based Hoosier Fight Club (HFC), Memphis-based V3 Fights, Baltimore-based Shogun Fights, Ohio-based Iron Tiger Fight Series (IT Fight Series), Miami-based Fight Time Promotions, Atlanta-Based National Fighting Championship (NFC), as well as a San Diego-based promotion. The Company has previously announced the signing of a Letter of Intent to acquire a prominent Los-Angeles-based promotion, and further expects to acquire up to nine additional MMA promotions over the next seven months.
