By: Sean Crose
FiteTV has been purchased by TrillerNet, which owns up and coming fight broadcaster Triller Fight Club. According to a Wednesday press release, “TrillerNet is a first of its kind company consolidating technology and content platforms to lead the move to Internet 3.0. TrillerNet pairs the culture of music with sports, fashion, entertainment and influencers through a 360-degree view of content and technology.” The sale of FiteTV will immediately impact fans due to the fact that Triller will now be behind the broadcast of this weekend’s pay per view card featuring Jake Paul and Ben Askren, who will be engaging in a professional cruiserweight battle.
“FITE has been a fantastic partner, and the synergy between the two businesses and teams was clear from day one,” Bobby Sarnevesht, Chairman and Co-owner of Triller, and Ryan Kavanaugh, Co-owner of Triller, stated in the press release. “With our acquisition of FITE, we bring into TrillerNET their stellar technology, valuable customer and content partner base, and one of the most experienced executive teams in this space. The deal represents our ambitions to not only expand Triller Fight Club and grow FITE’s distribution relationships, but also to reimagine what, how and when premium music, sports and entertainment is delivered to today’s audiences.”
Triller Fight Club, which did a bang up job presenting last year’s Mike Tyson-Roy Jones novelty fight card, plans to keep steamrolling ahead with big names and splashy – if not always consequential – boxing events. “Next up for Triller and FITE,” the press release states, “is the highly anticipated 2021 debut of Triller Fight Club, featuring the headline fight Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren in Atlanta on April 17th, and live performances by some of the music industry’s top talent, including Justin Bieber and hip hop supergroup Mt. Westmore (Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Too $hort and E-40), as well as The Black Keys, Doja Cat, Saweetie, Diplo and Major Lazer. The two companies will announce next month several more four-quadrant events of this magnitude, including the highly-anticipated, post-retirement return of Oscar De La Hoya to the boxing ring at Triller Fight Club’s upcoming July 3 event.”
Last year’s Tyson-Jones card proved to be a hugely successful pay per view endeavor for Triller Fight Club. By cashing on entertainment flavored boxing cards, the outlet clearly hopes to become a force within the sport. Interestingly enough, Triller recently paid a huge sum for rights to air the upcoming Teofimo Lopez-George Kambosos lightweight title matchup…a boxing match of consequence if ever there was one.