Paramount-Zuffa Boxing announcement expected as early as next week

It’s been more than a month since it was first reported that Paramount would be landing the media rights to TKO’s Zuffa Boxing promotion.

But while an official announcement has yet to be made, one is expected soon, with Puck’s John Ourand reporting that it could come as early as next week.

“I’ve just learned that Paramount is likely to pick up rights to TKO’s new Zuffa Boxing league, with the announcement coming as soon as next week,” Ourand wrote in his latest newsletter for Puck News.

Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel first reported in August that Paramount was nearing a deal with the upstart boxing promotion. The news came one day after another TKO subsidiary, UFC, announced its seven-year, $7.7 billion rights deal with Paramount, which will go into effect in 2026.

Speaking with Ourand on The Varsity podcast earlier this month, TKO president and chief operating officer Mark Shapiro said that his company originally considered bundling its Zuffa rights alongside UFC’s. Ultimately, the combat sports giant opted to sell them separately, although the fact that they are both landing with the same platform may indicate that’s largely a matter of semantics.

“The UFC was such a big deal that we needed to close that out and give the announcement its own stage,” Shapiro said. “And we moved boxing to the back burner.”

As for what the Zuffa Boxing deal will look like, both Shapiro and UFC president Dana White have indicated that TKO is looking to sell 12-16 fight cards. Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabia-funded promotion will maintain the ability to sell separate “super fights,” such as the Terence Crawford vs. Canelo Álvarez event, which streamed on Netflix and served as Zuffa’s official debut earlier this month.

“That gives us a chance to promote our portfolio, our stable of fighters, on the undercard,” Shapiro said of such events.

As for Paramount, the expected deal with Zuffa Boxing adds to a sports portfolio that currently includes the NFL, the NCAA Tournament, Big Ten and Mountain West football, various PGA Tour events, the UEFA Champions League and now, UFC. Both the UFC and expected Zuffa deals come on the heels of Skydance’s $8 billion merger with Paramount under the direction of CEO David Ellison.