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Just a year after its inception, the Professional Fighters League has already clinched a multi-year deal with ESPN. This August, fans will descend on Atlantic City for the mixed martial arts league’s three-night residency at the Ocean Casino Resort as fighters face off for an opportunity to move on to the playoffs in Las Vegas.

The partnership with ESPN presents an opportunity for the nascent league, drawing millions of viewers to televisions and mobile devices around the world. Hosting the nationally televised and internationally streamed event also presents an opportunity for the equally young Ocean Casino, which opened last June.

“For a new property like Ocean, building that awareness is crucial, and exposing ourselves to an international audience like that is very important to the property,” said Mike Donovan, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of Ocean Casino.

Atlantic City and Ocean Casino beat out around a dozen other contenders vying to host PFL events, in part because of two successful Atlantic City PFL events last year and the resort town’s long association with professional boxing.

“The second half of that July season, people who are already there vacationing looking for live sports events and others will travel to AC just to see it,” said PFL Chief Executive Peter Murray. “Not only did we have great experience there but Atlantic City has such rich history in the fight game so to speak. There’s a lot of legacy.”

Combat sports in Atlantic City began when Willie Clark beat Horace Leeds on points over four rounds in a fight on Feb. 6, 1887. Since then, the city has hosted more than 2,500 boxing matches according to BoxRec.com, including many featuring former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

“Atlantic City has a long history of entertainment and definitely a long entertainment history in boxing and MMA and getting these big ticketed fights down to the shore,” said Donovan.

The PFL is unique in MMA due to its season format. The 2019 season has 68 fighters in six weight classes, competing on six season dates split between the Nassau Colosseum in Uniondale, N.Y. and Ocean Casino. Fighters will each get to fight at least once in Uniondale and once in Atlantic City during the summer season, and the top eight in each class will face off in bracket-style, single elimination playoffs in Las Vegas in the fall. The season will culminate in six championship back-to-back fights at Madison Square Garden on New Years’ Eve, with winners getting a slice of the $10 million prize pool.

Murray said MMA is the fastest growing sport in the country and fans have “an insatiable appetite for quality live events.” They also have an insatiable appetite for data, something PFL provides in spades: the league has invested in tools that inform viewers and fighters about biometric data like the speed at which a punch travels, calories burned and energy exerted.

“These are first and foremost tools and info that’s valuable to the athlete, data helps them prepare and train for their upcoming fights. It has an added benefit from a consumer standpoint for providing context for what the athlete is enduring for a fight. And that context helps tell the story of the incredible athletes,” Murray explained.

Donovan expects PFL’s residency to build Ocean Casino’s summer business, not just because it will be on television but because it falls on an atypical night: Thursday.

“Having anything midweek on a Thursday night is fabulous for us,” Donovan said. “It’s able to really boost the business we see on those weekends by getting thousands of people through the doors and getting people who ordinarily wouldn’t come down to the city midweek. It’s a significant impact to the property, not only on those nights, but in the days surrounding the fights as well.”

Ovation Hall, where the fights will be held in Ocean Casino, has the largest permanent stage in North America. In addition to the approximately 4,000 seat room, Murray expects to the surpass televised, online and mobile audience of last year’s championship, which attracted five million viewers. He expects to enjoy a long relationship with Atlantic City.

“We staged two events in Atlantic City last year, and in our second season, we’re back for three,” he said. “We keep growing the relationship.”