In the nearly two months since UFC officially hit the open market, there hasn’t been much chatter — at least publicly — regarding the MMA giant’s next media rights deal.
That, however, could soon be changing, with Puck’s John Ourand reporting that four major companies have emerged as suitors for the UFC rights, which are now expected to be split into multiple packages.
According to Ourand, UFC’s talks with ESPN are currently the “furthest along,” which isn’t necessarily surprising considering that the Worldwide Leader got a head start on the negotiations as its current media rights partner. Per Ourand, the Disney-owned company is interested in retaining UFC’s linear TV rights, in addition to preserving content for its upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service.
While ESPN would presumably also be interested in retaining UFC’s pay-per-view business, it now faces stiff competition from streaming suitors in Netflix and Amazon. Netflix possesses a preexisting relationship with UFC’s parent company, TKO, via WWE Raw, while Amazon has made recent efforts to bolster its pay-per-view offerings.
Meanwhile, Ourand refers to Warner Bros. Discovery as the “wildcard in the negotiations.” WBD has spent the past year rebuilding its sports portfolio after losing NBA rights and possesses both linear and digital offerings via its multiple cable channels and the HBO Max streaming service.
While nothing is set in stone at this point, all indications appear to be that UFC will exit this round of negotiations with two separate rights packages. Ourand notes that if the promotion stuck with just one rights package — like its current setup with ESPN — it would inevitability go to one of the streamers, which could potentially leave the sport underexposed. Conversely, stretching the rights deal to three separate packages would seemingly spread the product too thin.
If that’s the case, the likeliest outcome appears to be UFC signing with one linear TV partner (ESPN or WBD) and one streamer (Netflix or Amazon), which would then take over as the new provider of the company’s coveted pay-per-view offerings. As for the timeline of all of this, Ourand states that UFC is still at least a month-and-a-half away from finalizing its next deal.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.