UFC CEO Dana White announced on Monday that the pay-per-view model is going away following a “historic deal” between the UFC and Paramount, which owns CBS.
Paramount announced on Monday morning that it struck a seven-year $7.7 billion deal with the UFC, giving CBS and Paramount+ exclusive broadcast and streaming rights to one of America’s fastest-growing sports. Under the new deal — which will go into effect next year — Paramount will have access to all 30 UFC Fight Nights, along with 13 additional major UFC events, The New York Times reported. Some of the UFC’s top matchups will be broadcast on CBS, and all of the fights will be available with a subscription to Paramount+, with no additional pay-per-view fees.
White celebrated the news, writing in a statement, “This historic deal with Paramount and CBS is incredible for UFC fans and our athletes. For the first time ever, fans in the US will have access to all UFC content without a Pay-Per-View model, making it affordable and accessible to view the greatest fights on a massive platform.”
“This deal puts UFC amongst the biggest sports in the world,” White added. “The exposure provided by the Paramount and CBS networks under this new structure is a huge win for our athletes and anyone who watches and loves this sport.”
The deal marks one of the first major moves from Paramount’s new CEO, David Ellison, who became the company’s head honcho just last week after his company, Skydance Media, took over Paramount.
“We could not be more excited about this,” Ellison told the Times. “From my perspective, the U.F.C. is really a unicorn sports asset.”
“We think it is going to be incredibly material in terms of increasing our engagement on Paramount+, driving subscriber acquisitions and also meaningfully growing revenue across the business,” Ellison added.
Since 2019, the UFC has been broadcast and streamed on ESPN and ESPN+. Under that deal, ESPN paid $550 million per year for rights to UFC coverage. The ESPN-UFC streaming model was highly criticized by fans who had to pay both a subscription fee and a pay-per-view fee for the biggest fights. To watch fights on ESPN+, UFC fans were charged a monthly subscription for the Disney streaming service on top of a pay-per-view fee for some of the biggest fights.
Under the UFC-Paramount deal, fans will pay for a Paramount+ subscription, which is $8 per month for a basic subscription or $13 per month for a premium subscription, and there won’t be any additional fees for marquee fights.
“For our fan base, this is going to be much easier, much more accessible, much less expensive, and something that is going to ultimately attract and keep a lot of subscribers with Paramount+,” said Mark Shapiro, the president of TKO, which owns the UFC.