UFC and ESPN will open an exclusive, three-month negotiating window in Jan. 2025.
Whether or not The Walt Disney Company can lock up another longterm streaming contract with the world’s most valuable combat sports promotion — operating under the TKO Group Holdings banner — all depends on what kind of coin ESPN is willing to cough up.
The more likely scenario is UFC hits the open market in April and looks for the highest bidder, which could include popular streaming services like Amazon and Netflix — the latter of which will serve as the new home for WWE programming in early 2025.
“Yeah, everyone is kicking the tires,” White told Sports Business Journal. “And over the however many last years that we’ve been together, I’ve had some headbutting with ESPN, but I feel like we are in a really good place right now and I’m really happy with my relationship with them and the way that this whole thing is running. We’ll see how it plays out. I think everyone is kicking the tires and is interested in making a bid.”
UFC previously aired on Spike TV and FOX before landing on ESPN.
“We see the demand for live sports is outstripping the supply of premium sports content,” TKO Group Holdings President Mark Shapiro said during a recent financial update. “It’s not really a volume product. It’s a premium volume product. Sort of like the NFL used to be before Thursday Night Football. It was driven by scarcity. I think UFC benefits the same way. We’re also both at once a subscriber acquisition tool and a churn antidote. We’re attractive to both digital and linear and we’re year-round. We’re optimistic at the potential package we will end up with.”
If UFC was worth $7 billion in 2018, how much could it command in 2025? We’ll find out in just a few months.
Theres no UFC scarcity. Scarcity existed back in the early 2000s when the cards were fewer and further between and had great fights.
Whith stupid fuckin cards every week and over priced PPVs every month thats not scarcity.
They sre trying to create premium sports content by pricing it so hight. These fuckin cards are far from “premium.”
Suck it TKO Group
100% ESPN deal to me has turned the UFC into absolute dog shit. Just look at the next 2 weeks of fight cards.
Everything is watered down garbage. They rely solely on Alex to save every card.
Dana doesn’t under stand what kicking tyres means , seems to have butting heads backwards as well.
UFC on Netflix would be interesting , with fight pass as an additional package on Netflix. Weird seeing them throwing their hat in the ring though.
The issue had already been there for years before ESPN though, maybe its gotten slightly worse. They have been doing roughly the same amount of cards a year for like a decade at this point, and its way too many. The sweet spot was around 20-25 a year imo, thats where they were at in the late 00s and early 10s.
IMO the UFC has gotten a little stale
An adjustment in the rules in regards to 12-6 elbows might help change that
- soccer kicks as well
On a side note, I thought that I was the only one that referee to the UFC as a “chum antidote”….
Even google doesn’t know what that term means
This guy is saying the same shit as us from the sounds of it lol.
UFC needs to have less and better cards.