David Ellison has been the chairman of Paramount for all of five days, but he already has something to show for it.
Paramount announced Monday morning that it had struck a seven-year $7.7 billion deal to claim exclusive streaming and broadcast rights in the United States for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The deal will go into effect next year.
The agreement will give Paramount access to the full slate of U.F.C.’s 30 fight nights, along with 13 of the sport’s biggest events. All of the fights will be available on the Paramount+ streaming app, and some marquee matches will also broadcast on CBS, which Paramount owns.
“We could not be more excited about this,” Mr. Ellison said in a phone interview. “From my perspective, the U.F.C. is really a unicorn sports asset.”
Last week, Skydance Media, of which Mr. Ellison is founder and chief executive, finally took over Paramount — the parent company of CBS, Comedy Central and the fabled Hollywood movie studio — after more than a year spent wrangling to buy it.
Sports rights have become increasingly valuable to media organizations, as they attempt to sell more subscriptions to their streaming services, and to increase the amount of time people spend there. Paramount’s streaming services, which includes Paramount+ and the free streamer Pluto, accounted for just 2 percent of television viewing time in the United States in June, compared with Netflix’s 8.3 percent share and YouTube’s 12.8 percent, according to Nielsen.
“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,” Mr. Ellison said.
The new deal will replace a yearslong arrangement between U.F.C. and ESPN, and effectively doubles the total fee the sport will take in. ESPN currently pays roughly $550 million a year for U.F.C. coverage.
The ESPN pact with the U.F.C. provided some hurdles for its fans. Under that deal, the marquee fights were available on the ESPN+ streaming app (which costs $12 a month), and then there was a pay-per-view fee on top of that, effectively forcing consumers to get through a double paywall.
The new deal will require just a subscription to Paramount+ ($13 a month without ads, and $8 a month with commercials) without any additional fees to access the 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, the owner of the U.F.C.
Paramount and TKO said that the seven-year deal has an average yearly value of $1.1 billion, though “the contract’s payment schedule is weighted more toward the back end of the deal.”
The U.F.C. has come a long way since Senator John McCain once likened mixed martial arts to “human cockfighting.” The sport has a loyal, rabid fan base, which has continued to grow in recent years, particularly among younger men. “We own men in the flyover states,” Mr. Shapiro said. (TKO also owns WWE, which made a $1.6 billion deal with ESPN just last week. ESPN is introducing a new streaming app, which will cost $30 a month, next week.)
The U.F.C. also has one very influential fan: President Trump.
Mr. Trump has been a fan of the sport for years, and the U.F.C. chief executive, Dana White, is a close ally. The president was spotted at a U.F.C. fight in April, sitting near Mr. Ellison as well as Ari Emanuel, the chief executive of TKO.
Mr. Trump has also said that he wants to stage a U.F.C. fight on the White House grounds next year, around the July 4 holiday. Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Shapiro confirmed in an interview the likelihood of the fight, which would be streamed on Paramount+ and possibly broadcast on CBS.
When Mr. Ellison took over Paramount, he vowed to invest in the company but also promised that he and his executive leadership team would find more than $2 billion worth of cost cuts. (Mr. Ellison, 42, is the son of the tech titan Larry Ellison, one of the richest men in the world).
The closing process was a long affair, and required approval from the Trump administration. Last month, Paramount paid Mr. Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview.
Mr. Shapiro said that negotiations for the rights to the U.F.C. began in February, and that conversations with Mr. Ellison started in early June. Mr. Emanuel said that “the money was what we wanted” and that “getting rid of the pay-per-view window” also helped put Mr. Ellison’s bid over the top. The presence of a broadcast network, CBS, made a prospective deal with Paramount more appealing, Mr. Shapiro said.
“Just a few days after David Ellison and team have closed this unbelievable acquisition, before they’ve even rearranged the furniture, we’re jumping into bed with them,” Mr. Shapiro said.