Jeff Aronson is a 41-year-old self-described serial entrepreneur and avid mixed martial arts fan. A Brazilian jiu-jitsu purple belt, he simply can’t get enough of the sport.
His intense love of MMA, combined with his business acumen, drove him to create Alchemist Management in 2010.
Along with CEO MC Hammer, president Lex McMahon and vice president Nima Safapour, Aronson has helped launch the careers of Rory MacDonald, Liz Carmouche, Stefan Struve, Brendan Schaub and many other top fighters.
That same passion and love have now pushed him in another direction in MMA. He has stepped down as chairman of Alchemist Management in order to create Titan FC, LLC, a Florida-based company, which he hopes will provide fighters with a new platform to advance the world of mixed martial arts.
The reasoning behind the new venture is similar to why he started Alchemist: He wants to give fighters an opportunity to showcase their skills against high-level competition and allow their talents to be seen by fans all across the world.
“I had signed and managed a bunch of young fighters in Florida, and I was having a hard time getting them fights,” Aronson told Bleacher Report. “The guys Alchemist was signing were top of the food chain and no one wanted to fight them.”
“I had spoken to a bunch of the top management companies in the MMA space and they were all running into the same situation with their clients. I realized there was an epidemic for high quality talent to find real fights. As a result, the decision to start Titan FC was made to see if I could bring this young talent to a higher level.”
Aronson learned throughout his time in the business world, as well as in mixed martial arts, that it’s never safe to jump into something without doing your due diligence first. He decided to turn toward Titan Entertainment, LLC, a Kansas-based company, which had already been established in the promotion of MMA fights.
He decided that if he was going to do a new project, he was going to go full steam ahead or not at all. That is why the deal with Titan made so much sense; it had a great reputation and the right personnel already in place.
“I had heard that there might be an opportunity to do something with Titan Entertainment, which has been owned and operated by Joe Kelly,” said Aronson. “So I reached out to Joe, and after a couple of months of negotiations, we were able to do a deal together. Joe Kelly is someone who has run shows for Bellator, M-1 and various other organizations. It made total sense for me to keep someone like Joe on board.
“Titan FC was also able to retain Joe Wooster as the matchmaker; he has experience working for a bunch of organizations as well. I never realized how many things go into putting on a show. You have the lighting, production ticket sales, the list goes on and on and Kelly is totally comfortable handling all of that.”
Alchemist Management has grown into one of the leading management groups in mixed martial arts. Whether you speak to the fighters, other managers or officials from various promotions, they will say the same thing: When dealing with Alchemist, you know you are going to deal with honest and straightforward people. The principles that Aronson helped to instill in Alchemist lent a hand when he decided to begin this new venture with Titan FC.
“I’ve been able to call on people in the industry that I have a relationship with and get their fighters in Titan FC,” offered Aronson. “When the Titan FC roster is announced, you’ll see a collaboration of a lot of management companies.
“They know that their guys are going to be in real, dynamic fights and, as a fan, that’s what I want to see. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s veterans from other promotions or young guys coming up, it’s all the same.
“I want to see quality guys fighting quality opponents. I have also decided to give every single fighter an opt-out clause in the event Zuffa signs them. Everyone has been incredibly receptive to it, and we’ve had a lot of monster signings that will be announced within the next week or two.”
The biggest decision was to look for a broadcast partner. Titan FC wanted to create a brand new identity as well as work with a partner that can be seen in more homes and has the wherewithal to promote the organization to a much wider audience.
“I think there are only a few major networks that you can put a promotion on,” Aronson stated. “CBS Sports Network falls into that category. They’ve been an excellent partner thus far and we will be doing a tremendous amount of cross promotion with them. They’ll be doing a lot of advertising for Titan on their network.”
Many other promotions have chosen to partner up with AXS TV, and they have all had success, but Aronson wanted Titan FC to stand on its own. CBS Sports Network afforded Titan FC that opportunity.
“AXS TV has a lot of good shows on it, but to me it gets a little confusing. When you have a bunch of different promotions on one network, it’s hard to have your own identity. Getting on a bigger stage and establishing our own identity was something that was extremely important to Titan FC. I have some very strong network connections, and thankfully we were able to make that happen.”
Aronson is committed to putting 100 percent of his focus on the day-to-day operations of Titan FC. As he explained earlier, there are a lot of things that go into producing a show that fans don’t get to see or hear about.
He will still own a stake in Alchemist, but when he says he is not involved with the company, he means it.
“I’m not at Alchemist anymore, and it’s not something where I’m looking to load the cards up with Alchemist fighters and have them face inferior fighters so they can use them as stepping stones. I’m in this to provide a platform for all fighters and put them on the right stage. I want to watch them perform to the best of their abilities.
“I want nothing more than for them to get into the big show. No one is ever going to be able to compete with Zuffa directly, and I have no aspirations to do so. I have massive respect for the organization and the people who run it.”
Once the negotiations with Titan Entertainment reached a serious point, Aronson had to sit down with his partners at Alchemist and inform them of his decision. It wasn’t easy walking away from something he helped nurture from a new entity to one of the best management companies in the sport, but he was greeted with a lot of enthusiasm.
“Everybody was extremely supportive, and they were of the same mindset that this was something where we would have to have a division of church and state,” said Aronson. “If I was going to start Titan, then I was going to have to really step down from Alchemist. It wasn’t going to be a publicity stunt where we told people I was stepping down, but in reality I wasn’t.
“I’m no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of Alchemist. I am now dealing with Alchemist managers the same way I am dealing with any other manager. I’m trying to get as many guys on the card as I can and place them in tough fights.”
Titan FC 27 will air on the CBS Sports Network on February 27 from Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kan. Aronson is calling on The Ultimate Fighter Season 16 finalist and Alchemist client Mike Ricci to headline the card. He has also added a nice mixture of established veterans and up-and-coming fighters who will bring the type of excitement he and Titan are looking for.
“Jorge Gurgel is tough as nails, he’s someone who will go in there, bang with you and put on an incredible performance,” said Aronson. “On top of that, he’s one of the most talented BJJ black belts in the country. He’s in there with Ricci, and I think that fight is going to be an absolute barn-burner. I don’t think it’s a cakewalk for either fighter.”
“Another Alchemist client who is on the card is Kurt Holobaugh, and he’ll face Eric Marriott, who is a tough dude. He’s got a great record, he’s a Bellator veteran and he’s no joke. Titan has signed some incredible bouts that haven’t been announced yet. From a fan’s perspective. This is going to be a card that I’m going to want to watch.”
With all the success Aronson has enjoyed as an entrepreneur and in his other projects, getting involved in MMA goes far beyond adding to his net worth. When he first started Alchemist, his mission was to help clients increase their visibility, which in turn would help their bottom line. Starting Titan FC goes far beyond making money for Aronson.
“This whole endeavor is not solely on money,” Aronson admitted. “At this stage of my life, money is not the driving force. I am looking to create opportunities for all of the young men or women and help them further their careers. I want to provide entertaining shows and allow these fighters to do what they have been doing for years.
“They train two or three times a day, six days a week. With that type of training and dedication, they should have the opportunity to test themselves against the best competition and see if they are good enough to compete with the top fighters in the world.”
When you combine the hottest growing sport in the world with one of the largest television networks, it shouldn’t prove difficult to find sponsors. In this day and age where everyone can DVR their favorite television shows, live sporting events still draw high ratings. Aronson has promised not to interfere with his fighter’s opportunities to find sponsors, as long as they are not offensive or vulgar.
“We’re actually going to contract with some major sponsors in the coming week,” admitted Aronson. “It’s very exciting; we are working with like minded people. They want to be involved in this industry and with a brand that is going to do right by all of their fighters. We’re all in this for a common goal.
”As far as I’m concerned, fighters will have free rein on who they can get to sponsor them. Obviously there can’t be any porn or anything associated with an illegal entity. There are a bunch of different categories that need to be weeded out. If these guys have people behind them who want to sponsor them and want to see them succeed, who am I to tell them they can’t help them?”
Titan FC has eight events scheduled for 2014, with the first one taking place at The Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kan., which is where the promotion has held the majority of its previous shows. Titan FC officials have plans in place to take the promotion from a regional one and bring it onto the national stage.
“We’re planning on going everywhere from Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma and we’re actually talking about California,” Aronson said. “We plan on targeting venues all over the country. We’re looking at arenas that can hold up to 10,000 fans. We are also in conversations with a lot of Indian reservations right now.”
There are numerous goals already in place for the first year of Titan FC under Aronson’s guidance. The majority of those goals remain consistent with the mantra he has been talking about all along. Stage the fights that fans want to see and offer unique opportunities to the fighters who haven’t been able to find lasting success up until now.
“We’re looking to become a major player in MMA by helping to cultivate all the young talent and giving the veterans a place to improve themselves so they can get back into the big show. There’s enough talent out there to help a promotion to continuously build stars. We want to see these guys get into the big show as fast as possible.”
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