The UFC is seeking more than $1 billion a year from its next media rights deal, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That’s more than double what the current contract holder ESPN pays. This just adds a new spice to the 2025 Broadcast rights deal for promotional CEO Dana White and the UFC.
ESPN currently owns the rights to all of the UFC’s telecasts. The communion has been good for the UFC. Dana White said the streaming audience grew sixty-five percent during COVID, due to proactive measures and ESPN’s media deal offering an easy telecast pathway. But, UFC’s deal with ESPN expires in 2025.
Discussions around our upcoming U.S. domestic rights renewal have not yet begun, and as such we have shared no expectations regarding price, …We are in an exclusive negotiating window with ESPN through mid-April 2025, and look forward to productive negotiations when the time comes…
TKO Group Holdings (NYSE: TKO) in company Email Stetement; 1/1/2024
The two parties are entering an exclusive negotiating foray later this month. UFC and its parent TKO Group Holdings are looking for a good haul on a strong market for sports rights. Long-term deals are already in place in most major US leagues; now UFC needs one. TKO NYSE stocks went 2.8% to $146.38; they are planning a similar 74% share climb of the season in the long run.
TKO CEO Ari Emanuel and President Mark Shapiro are open to splitting 2025 Broadcast rights to multiple parties. The top runners are Amazon.com, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery (lost rights to the NBA), and YouTube for the pay-per-view matches. All of these companies are on the lookout for sports rights to give their streaming services a boost. White and Co. though aren’t giving up on ESPN itself as well.
UFC not unfazed by options as ESPN looks a good go-around
After the NBA announced an 11-year, $76 billion deal with Disney, NBC, and Amazon Prime, Dana White presented a similar split media right for UFC. He has plans to make his fight grind a living organism. It is something that stays on multiple channels instead of one, he detailed this in a ‘Money Movers’ CNBC Exclusive for CNBC TV (@CNBCtelevision).
Dana White and Co. isn’t scrapping ESPN media deal options yet (Source: X)ESPN is on the verge of launching a new service, while Amazon has become the biggest buyer of sports rights among technology companies. Last year, TKO signed a $5 billion, 10-year deal to bring its WWE RAW brand exclusively to Netflix. It’s a 2025 Broadcast rights rat race as to who can provide better. White though, is quite happy with ESPN itself.
We started on ESPN seven years ago and had a rocky relationship in the beginning, …But now I couldn’t be happier at ESPN, it’s a great relationship and I wouldn’t mind staying with them.
Dana White to Bloomberg TV, 11/24
There have been hiccups, too. Like the aggressive pay-per-view pricing – $59.99 at launch to the current $79.99 cost in 2023. However, the UFC has a good thing going with ESPN, which has a deal for regular fights on the cable network and PPV streaming service. Those two deals together pay the UFC about $450 million a year.
Even Shapiro told SBJ that management would prefer to stay at Disney. The brass made $2.670-$2.745B in windfalls for 2024 revenue target. $851.2 million came from the streaming of the WrestleMania 40. The rest was the ESPN grind carrying out UFC telecasts; the historic UFC 300 PPV, for example, was one. Nothing is final yet as the UFC could still go in a direction that would result in better compensation.
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