Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the against the Fence podcast. As many of you will know from last year, we had a fight picks league which came to its conclusion with Harris winning. I think I can edit that if that's wrong. At the end of last year, winning some fabulous prizes, and we plan to do the same again this year. So this is a bit of a special episode. It's a little bit different.
And we've got Ben from MMA Fantasy with us today with some news about some updates and what we can expect coming over this next year and also all below, and we've been pushing it all week. If you want to join the league, the codes in the link description down below, share it with all your mates, get involved. It's going to be an exciting one. We've got a great new year ahead of us. How are you doing, Ben?
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Doing great. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: Oh, it was a bit of a. Bit of a different on this because it's a bit of like a tech kind of. It feels a bit techy today, which is a bit different for me. But I want to start off with. And because we're a fan channel, we're based off of, you know, the people that we interact with, our fans, and we want to hear their voice and their opinion. And I think the foremost was speaking to you earlier in the week is understanding, actually you. And it's your brother, right, that you've done this with, are both massive UFC fans to start off with. So where did kind of the UFC come in for you and your brother and lead us to, like, kind of today, I guess?
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So my brother and I, we started watching in middle school.
He kind of stuck with it and was all in on ufc.
Funny story, actually. I had to take a bit of a break from watching it because I was getting too aggressive in hockey, apparently.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: So my parents are like, no more ufc. And I was. I was just young, right? So I stopped watching just so I could play hockey, really.
And then I started watching again in 2018.
So I've always been a fan of it, just certain circumstances kind of prevented me. But my brother, he's been watching all throughout. All throughout his life, like the GSB era, that was his favorite fighter.
And, yeah, the rest is history. Now we watch every event and create pools and stuff for every event. So we're all in.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: So where did the idea or the inspiration come then? From creating the MMA Fantasy app?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Yeah, so we started off in high school.
My brother, he built this website for just like friends and family to join. It's kind of like a similar style to the MMA fantasy app. We just had like our friends and stuff. It wasn't public at all, so we started out with that. We really liked it. And then my brother, being a programmer, he's always wanted to build a mobile app.
So he's like, hey, he came up with this idea for MMA fantasies. Like, hey, what if we make a mobile app and have it so the whole world can use it? And we kind of went from there. He did all the programming, came up with a logo, and then, yeah, we just started making our social media pages and just trying to grow our fan base from there.
Yeah, so it's just really the idea that it's our passion and we love it. We love watching fights and we know a lot of other people do as well. So we wanted to create something around UFC and fight picks.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Is it?
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Do you. Because a lot of the guys that are creating content these days that I've seen, it's like a big upcoming thing at the moment. It's kind of the, the BET picks almost.
I, I thought that could be something integrated quite well into kind of understanding what people on the app have kind of almost seen a swing of whose people have picked for. Is that something that you think you could possibly integrate into it? I think that'd be an interesting dynamic.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Like seeing who, what other people pick and stuff.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So say, say like coming up, fights and your people are going through trying to decide who they want to pick. Obviously you've already integrated the kind of statistical side of it, but it'd just be interesting to see kind of the, the swing in terms of most people. You've obviously got the underdogs and stuff like that to help, kind of help you decide and see more if you don't know the fighters are. But maybe, I don't know, 60 have chosen one fighter and 40 have chosen another. Could you integrate that kind of.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. We could look into doing that.
We had that in our, in our website version where we could see who picked what so you can kind of catch up. But we, we really want to focus on having the user use their own fight knowledge to make picks. So there's not like changing picks like in between fights to like kind of make the leaderboard or climb the leaderboard. Although that is a strategic move.
We kind of want to make it the, the user's knowledge based picks be the forefront of, of how we, we run the app. So yeah, maybe after the pics are locked in we could show like, oh, these people pick this fighter, you pick this fighter. And then we can see like the percentages and stuff. But yeah, something we've thought about for sure.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: I think it's because I always get absolutely hammered at our group so it's always interesting for me to know what everyone else has chosen because.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: So poorly it might help me out. I'm just cheating slightly maybe.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Can you, like, for someone that obviously hasn't used the app before, could you kind of walk us through kind of the, the thinking behind the actual interface and, and the features of it so people can kind of climatize.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So you can start download the app. It's on the app Store and Google Play Store.
Start by doing that and then you get thrown into the homepage and you can either create a pool or join a pool with a join code and yeah, so it's all laid out on the app. It's pretty, pretty intuitive I think.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: And we have this section called Community Community pools. So if you don't have a pool or like are looking for a pool to join, you can go to the community pools page and there'll be a list of pools you can join. So you can just start right away.
Or you can create your own pool like I said with your friends and create your own league like you guys have done. So and then I can get into like how the points are awarded and stuff too.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that'd be helpful.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: So people can understand the competitive edge of it.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So once you create a pool, you can either choose for method and round picks. You can choose the full card, main event and co main or just the main card. So you got a little bit of options there for what you want to do. So we actually allow you to pick what method you think the fight's going to end in and what round. And then you get additional point for each of those you get correct. And then you also get a point on top if you pick the correct fighter.
And then we have a thing called extreme underdog.
So if the odds are greater than 500 point difference, I think the odds are a little different in Europe. But yeah, yeah, we, we have it set. So let's say we have one fighter who's a plus 200 underdog and you have the other fighters and minus 300 favorite, that's a difference of 500 points.
So if you pick the underdog, you'll actually get two extra points.
So it's a bit of a risk. But if you're kind of behind in the leaderboard. It's a good option to pick if you want to catch up. And then we have the leaderboard page, which shows everyone in the pool first, second and third are kind of highlighted with gold, silver and bronze icon beside their name.
And yeah, that's basically it. We got a new function rolling out with blog posts you can add to the app.
That's something we've been working on. So we can have like a ATF blog post on the homepage and then have a link to your pool or whatever, just so people can get informed and stay up to date with the latest. So that's. That's basically it, I think, for the rundown.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So, speaking of, because I know we were talking a little bit more about it earlier in, in the week, what's kind of that. What's next for the app stage? What are you looking to do over this, say, next year? Would you say that's going to change on the app that people could look forward to as such?
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So we have a lot of dreams and aspirations for the app, a lot of ideas. One thing we've been dreaming about is introducing ranked mode.
So basically you'll get a certain amount of points for how well you've done kind of like XP or like experience points, and then that will tally throughout your career, I guess, through MMA fantasy. And then you build XP and then you'll get like a rank for how many picks you've got. Right. And you can kind of go head to head with other people, let's say like Harris and Leslie, two of the top pickers in our app. They, they can go like, they can kind of compete to get the highest rank.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: That's cool.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: So that's something we want to incorporate soon. And it's going to take. It's going to take some time, but we're working with a designer to help us roll that out as well.
And then we also want to sort of gamify the experience to have fighter cards.
So let's say you win an event for a Jon Jones main event card.
You'll then get like a Jon Jones card that you can display on your profile. Say, oh, this person won that event.
It's kind of just like a trophy, I guess. So, yeah, that's something we've been dreaming about and hopefully we can roll that out this year. But for now, yeah, we're just grinding.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: I love, I love, like, I'm a big fan of that kind of award kind of system, like a card or something like that. Have you Ever thought about doing it in, like, kind of, and, like, monetizing it in terms of, like, an NFT sense? I think that could be a really cool opportunity because, I mean, NFTS and crypto is such a big thing now that. That people could almost. It's another incentive to play and score well, that people, you know, could almost trade, Cut, trade their cards.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good idea.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Have somehow incorporate crypto into that and NFTs, that would be cool for sure.
And who knows where it goes? I mean, like, NFTS is kind have kind of fallen off a little bit.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: But maybe we can bring it back with the MMA fantasy.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: I mean, I'll be there. All of a sudden, I'll be interested in NFT, trying to collect my Arnold Allen 101 or something like that. That'd be super cool. Yeah.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Yeah, that'd be sweet.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: One of the things that. Because I don't know a lot about the kind of tech industry, how does the dynamic work between, like, you and your brother? Obviously, he's the programmer, and then you look into kind of like, I guess, the development, the market, the social media, that kind of stuff. How does it work behind the scenes? Because programming has always been a bit. I mean, my, My mind thinks like ones and zeros and kind of like Python, and that's kind of it.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: So. Yeah, I don't know anything about coding, to be honest.
My brother, he's been coding since he was in high school, so he's the mastermind behind everything. And sometimes he give me. He gives me rundowns of what he's been coding. I'm like, oh, yeah, sweet. I don't understand it, but it's just cool to see him work and just kind of light up with all these ideas and kind of bringing the vision into. Into life.
But other than that, the dynamic, I mean, we're, we're best friends, so it's, it's smooth sailing.
And I just run the social media and try to build the community up.
So, yeah, he's the coder, I'm the. I'm a social media guy, and I think together we make a really good team.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I think what you've produced so far from, from using the app with the guys last year. Yeah, it's definitely, it's very good. And I mean, feedback from, like, JK and some of the other guys, particularly, we reached out to a few people trying to say, like, what's, what's your feedback? And, and all of it was positive. So it's really hard for me to come in here and, like, suggest some ideas from the guys because they're just like, they love it and the interface is really simple, really easy to use, and they, they love that fact. It's not overwhelming. I think some people try to put maybe too much in there, and then you kind of get taken away with like, what the hell am I doing?
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: So, yeah, it was really, really nice for us to hear that because not only, I mean, I assume it's quite nice for you, but it's good that we've kind of landed on something that we, we enjoy and then obviously the people that, that watch, listen or whatever it is also enjoy.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: For sure. Yeah, we try to make the app as intuitive as possible. We think simpler is better and just for ease of use. And yeah, it gets, like. With this many ideas that we have, it gets kind of complicated to make everything seem smooth and seamless.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: But we somehow figured out a way to make it pretty easy to be used, so I think that's one of the strong suits of the app.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: So outside of kind of, I guess, against the fence, in your interactions of against the fence, how is it for you at the moment? How do you. How do you feel like the, the development of this is going?
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah, so I actually have some stats.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: From last year. So 2024, we had 1836 users that made fight predictions and total of 1049 pools were created.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: 153. 100 fight predictions were made and the app was actually translated into 15 different languages.
So trying to make it accessible worldwide. And we have, we have pools in, like, Serbia, France, the couple in South America.
So it's, it's exciting to see it grow for sure.
So really impressive.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry, continue.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: No, that was basically it. Um, but yeah, we're trying to hit a goal of 1,000 active month monthly users, so I think we're around 600. So we're, we're striving for that goal.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: Where does, where does the UK rank on that list? Do you know?
[00:16:38] Speaker B: I could quickly find out.
I don't have it off the top of my head, but definitely up there. It's definitely up there for sure.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Is there any plans to. Because obviously MMA is quite a niche sport. Have you got plans to try and, like, develop into other sports as well? Or are you just because you're a passion of mma, you just want to stick to mma?
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we're sticking with, with UFC specifically because they usually have a fight night or pay Per view every week. It's kind of a good balance.
There might be some options to, like, incorporate, like, contender series and potentially even, like, ultimate fighter fights in the future. That's something we haven't really thought about yet, but kind of just.
Yeah, like, the options are endless, I guess, but yeah, just sticking with UFC for now.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: How far do the analytics go on that? Can you see, like, when people have made picks? As you were saying before, you could incorporate how many people have swung what way? If you can, you, like, trend stuff over time? It'd just be interesting from our perspective to kind of understand who people, like, are really, really engaged with that, like, might be small, smaller people.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So we can only see the total amount of picks made.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: So we can't really dive into who picked what.
So maybe potentially we could look at data with who picked which fighter and, like, have the fighter stats for how many. How many picks they have.
So you can kind of see that data and like, analyze that and stuff. So.
Yeah.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: And you. You were saying about the community pause. You guys were hosting for the pay per views, your own kind of like, competition, weren't you? Talk to us a little bit about. About that.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So every pay per view, every big event will do a cash prize for the winner.
Whoever tops the leaderboard will get PayPal transfer for the big events. We. It's kind of a bigger prize, but for like, just the normal pay per view, I guess we kind of stick to a standard. So it's kind of just a cool way for fans to.
To get some prizes and have incentive to make the right picks and climb the leaderboard.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: So are you and your brother also in that pool when you.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: No, we. I'm. I'm in the pool, but I don't make picks just so I can see the leaderboard and stuff. But we think that would be unfair if we were actually participating it.
I mean, we could. We could participate.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: I think it'd be cool if you've got a league where you guys. Or. Or even. Even if you guys joined against the Fence league. I don't know if you guys are.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: In it, but yeah, I joined it, actually.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: Oh, sweet. Okay.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Cool. That's good.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I make picks on that league. Yeah.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Sweet. So if anyone's watching or listening and you want to go up against the guys that made the app, then join, jump in. We'll have the. The code to join our pool, and we'll have links to the app on Google Play and Apple below. So, yeah, just jump on and we'll See you there. It'd be fun if you could. If you could make a dream pick. So basically like your dream match up here, I guess. If you're for your. Your app, who would it be and why?
[00:20:26] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
I mean, Jon Jones Vers. Tom Aspinall is obviously a huge one. Yeah, I know you guys are likely supporting Aspen all here. Yeah, yeah. That would be a huge matchup.
We'd have to see what the odds are like there. I don't know. Jon Jones would probably be the favorite.
Not to, not to trash Aspinall, but Jon Jones is pretty dominant.
That would be cool. I mean, if McGregor ever comes back, that would be pretty big. Obviously he's. He's got his own things going on, but hopefully we see him at least one more time.
I'm a big fan of Dustin Poirier, so any fights he's in, like when he knocked out McGregor, I was just losing it. I was going crazy. Like, that was. That was the best thing ever.
So maybe Poirier Holloway, that would be cool.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Something like that.
Bmf? Yeah, who else? I mean, middleweight division, it's kind of. I don't know, it's not the best right now. I don't really like the.
The matchups, so to say, but they.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Feel I was always awkward, don't they? They just feel really.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: No matter who it is, it's like.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Strickland or Duplessis or. And then you throw in Adesanya, it's like need a. They need a champion that can defend the title for a while. So.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. If anyone had asked me a couple of years ago, who do you think is going to dethrone Israel Adesanya? I. I would never have said either of those guys were going to beat him. And it's just. It's just very weird.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Very weird.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: I don't like it.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's strange, but it is what it is. I guess it's cool to have some variety.
One thing I wanted to ask you actually, if you wanted to make your pool, make your ATF league public for community pool.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that'd be super cool.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: I can actually do that real time if you. If you want, you can show it on the app and stuff.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100. I mean, for us it's just. It's just a really good way to engage with, with, with other fans and put competition behind it. Last year we did prizes for some of the pay per views and then for like the end of the year and this year we want to do the same and possibly do more because it's really good. I like, I like the dynamic, especially how we utilize it, which is like when guys are watching along with us on the, on the live stream, we do the watch alongs on the weekend where you can talk about who have you picked and how have you. How have you picked them to win by and, and stuff like that. And you kind of get that extra suspense and interaction, talking about how we think the fights are going to go and why. And the dynamic of this app for us is just fabulous. And I think that's why we like it so much.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we appreciate that.
Yeah, there's, there's options like customization.
You can you meet new people? Yeah, I've met a lot of cool, cool UFC fans on X and just engaging with them and like, we want to have that fan and creator relationship where it doesn't feel like there's a barrier between. Between the two.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: So we got our Discord server. You can hop in on there and chat with us. You can connect on X. And yeah, we got Instagram page, stuff like that. And yeah, we just really thank you for having us on the podcast too, to just kind of gain that exposure, so.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Oh, 100. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's great. Great collaboration. Like you said, you've got all those social media pages. I'll also link all of those down below. So, guys, if you're interested in following these guys and even if you've got any ideas, thoughts yourself, I mean, I've. I've given a few ideas myself and, you know, you could. The guys are happy for you to do that.
Yeah, all of them are down below. And I look forward to seeing how this year goes. Hopefully I do a bit better than last year.
Terrible.
But yeah, I guess, yeah. Thank you very much for joining us.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: No worries.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Is there anything else you want to close with?
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Yeah, let me just see here. I'm gonna try to get your pool on community here. It's ATF Fight League.
Yeah, there it is. 2025.
So I'll select that and then Community Pool Save.
Boom. Now we go into the app and it should pop up here.
Just give it one sec.
Might take a little bit to update, but in the Community Pools tab, you're going to pop up there shortly and then anyone who uses the app will be able to join that. So hopefully you can drive some more users there.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: Yeah, we really appreciate that. Thank you very much. And yeah, look forward to seeing. Seeing how this next year goes. Excited for it. Thank you.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: I'm stoked. Thanks for having me.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: No worries.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Peace.
