Major League Wrestling, Range Sports Reach Partnership Deal
In an effort to reach new heights, Major League Wrestling has partnered with Range Sports.
A division of Range Media Partners, which is best known for its success in film, television, and music, Range Sports is the newest addition to the powerful management company. It is led by Will Funk, the president of Range Sports, who has an extensive background in professional sports, as well as experience with pro wrestling.
Acutely aware of the value of his content, MLW CEO Court Bauer is full of optimism regarding the new partnership.
“With so much disruption in the content space, live sports are increasingly valued,” Bauer says. “Range has the resources to take Major League Wrestling to new heights by creating strategic partnerships that enrich and ensure our continued momentum.”
Courtesy of MLW
Funk enters the partnership with a unique background. He is best known for his work over the past two decades at WarnerMedia, where he reached great heights as Executive Vice President. Funk oversaw the NBA on TNT partnership, helped lead a joint venture with CBS to acquire March Madness in 2011–a seismic deal for Warner that extends through 2035–and began creating original programming in 2018, starting with The Match: Tiger vs. Phil, which evolved into The Match 2, the highest-rated golf event of all-time.
Now, with Range’s wide array of resources, Funk is seeking to develop content opportunities around a high-growth property in MLW.
“One of our pillars at Range is identifying growth properties across sports, and we think there is a great opportunity for a distribution partner that wants to build a property, potentially even an equity partner,” Funk says. “Court has experience, knowledge, and the number of hours of programming he has already produced is remarkable. A part that really excites me is MLW’s diversity. There is an appeal to the Hispanic marketplace, which is a huge opportunity for wrestling. There is tremendous upside there–I don’t know that the other promotions have done a great job with diversity. And MLW is a great product.”
No stranger to pro wrestling, another key moment in Funk’s tenure included helping bring All Elite Wrestling to Turner Sports, which is owned by Warner. AEW now airs on TBS, and initially debuted on TNT in October of 2019.
“Our biggest debate was whether it was actual sports content or entertainment,” Funk says. “Ultimately, at that time, we decided it would live on the entertainment side. We weren’t exactly sure how it would perform. There weren’t a lot of lead-ins that made sense, so it was sort of on an island of its own. We put it on, and it did extremely well from the get-go.
“The proof is always in the numbers, and it kept gaining momentum and became one of the highest-rated non-sports programs on TNT. It continues to do phenomenally well. AEW did a great job creating a product people want to watch.”
The partnership with MLW offers a new chance for Funk to again thrive with a pro wrestling entity. Range is a management production company, so it is different from a traditional agency. It develops television and film products in-house and offers the capability of attaching itself to produce, which agents cannot do, and that allows for tremendous flexibility for MLW.
“We have an unlimited bandwidth and many potential distribution properties,” Funk says. “We’re going to look at our music division and see if there is someone who is very passionate about pro wrestling who can be a brand ambassador. Beyond film, TV, and music, our branding division can assist MLW in building a more polished brand. From the brand partnership side, we have lots of relationships with Fortune-500 companies that are looking to, specifically, integrate into the fabric of the property in a seamless, organic way. On the network/streaming side, we have relationships with broadcast cable stations and streaming services, so there is an opportunity there to get MLW in front of the right people.”
Led by men’s champion Alexander Hammerstone and women’s champ Taya Valkyrie, MLW’s roster is full of talent awaiting their breakout moment. Their next two shows–one later this month in Atlanta, then next month in Philadelphia–feature an array of talent that includes Bandido, Myron Reed, EJ Nduka, and Calvin Tankman.
With WWE and AEW largely controlling the wrestling space in North America, Bauer believes partnering with Range will add a whole new dimension to his brand.
“Range has created a true dream team in the entertainment and sports space, so this is a great opportunity for MLW,” Bauer says. “Right now, we’re airing in over 60 countries. The goal is to extract maximum value across television, sponsor sales, event touring, and our full portfolio. We want to grow our windows and that is driven by live broadcasts.”
For Range, elevating MLW to a new tier of success will involve a step-by-step process. The first steps include finding a distribution partner, the right brand partners, and then the right talent to weave into MLW so it receives increased exposure.
“That’s the priority, getting MLW to as many people as possible,” Funk says. “Then we can get to the monetization.
“We do a lot of proprietary data and analytics, and what that’s telling us is there’s something here. We believe our resources can really amplify what they’re already doing.”
Justin Barrasso can be reached at JBarrasso@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinBarrasso.
