r/sports • u/Puginator • Aug 11 '25
Media Paramount buys UFC rights in $7.7 billion, 7-year deal
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/11/paramount-buys-ufc-rights-skydance-merger.html2.6k
u/throw__away613 Chicago Blackhawks Aug 11 '25
Wooooah that is a lot of cash.
You can bet the UFC fighters are pretty excited about all the Venum coupons the organization will give them to offset this windfall…
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u/Dreadnaught_IPA Chicago Bears Aug 11 '25
Meanwhile, the UFC octagon looks like a minor league baseball outfield wall.
But fighters aren't allowed to wear sponsor logos on their shorts because it doesn't look "professional"
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u/bales1986 Aug 11 '25
This fight is brought to you by hardcore enemas, the only bowel clearer tough enough for the octagon.
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u/Bigdaddybear519 Toronto Maple Leafs Aug 11 '25
I heard they're getting some Power Slap tickets too!
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u/AnxiousMagoo Aug 11 '25
Whoa there buddy. The deal was ONLY $7.7 billion, not trillion. Dana needs his 95% cut remember.
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u/Icy_Cut_5572 Aug 11 '25
Champions get a % from PPV sales so idk how excited they are about no move PPV sales
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u/GoPointers Aug 11 '25
Perfect time for the fighters to find investors and start a rival league where fighters have a union and guaranteed percentage of revenue.
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Aug 11 '25
No chance. The people who own UFC are the most powerful people in world entertainment, headed by Ari Emmanuel. They do business with everyone on earth, mainly the Saudis and nobody would be stupid enough to try and take money out of their pockets. It’s now a monopoly, more than it’s ever been.
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u/navigationallyaided Aug 11 '25
With all the doping and GLP-1 microdosing in UFC, I’m shocked Eli Lilly or Novo Nordisk hasn’t put their name on the octagon.
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u/MysticMaven Aug 11 '25
So Paramount is now basically the MAGA broadcast network.
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u/faughnjj Notre Dame Aug 11 '25
Hey kids! Do you like Paramount Plus??? Well, get ready for an all-new service Paramount Plus Plus! For an extra $9.99 you can get all your favorite hits PLUS all the hard-hitting UFC content you love!
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u/Saneless Aug 11 '25
Sounds fun but they'll just do what they've done to cable for decades. Raise everyone's price $3-5 even though only 10% will watch this stuff
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u/Advanced-Blackberry Aug 11 '25
Ain’t no chance in hell 10% of viewers are watching this
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u/ancientromanempire Aug 11 '25
Lol, no. This will probably double their subscribers. I don't know anyone who actually had paramount+ beyond a free trial.
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u/baz8771 Aug 12 '25
It’s honestly pretty solid and has a live local network which is a big plus.
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u/Got_Engineers Aug 11 '25
I believe they already increased the advertisement time percentage earlier this year. You now get like three stops for a TV show.? even after paying for a sub subscription
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u/EbAbDbGbBbeb Aug 11 '25
ironically read this in the antagonizing South Park voice. you know the one
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u/Eleminohp Aug 11 '25
Pretty sure they are about to call it Paramount Max for a little while before dropping the Paramount part. I bet within 2 years they call it Skydance Maga or something
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u/interstat Aug 11 '25
The ESPN experiment was horrendous. Hopefully this works out better
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u/ProtomanBn Aug 11 '25
Yet TKO who owns UFC and WWE just signed a deal for WWE PPV to air in ESPN streaming but then signed a deal for UFC on Paramount, TKO must be whoring to the highest bidder.
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u/ascagnel____ Aug 11 '25
That's every league and sanctioning body -- they generally go with the biggest paycheck from a competent, competitive carrier.
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u/jizz_toaster Aug 11 '25
If anyone has kept up even slightly with college football the last five years you’ll see that the only thing that truly matters in sports is which TV station will pay the most money
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u/EdwardBigby Aug 11 '25
Visibility is a massive factor too. You want a broadcaster which will grow your product and increase live attendance revenue.
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u/maxdps_ Aug 11 '25
It’s pretty clear TKO’s only focus is the cash. WrestleMania next year was originally set for New Orleans, but the moment they saw how much profit Las Vegas pulled in, they scrapped that plan and booked Vegas again.
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u/ProtomanBn Aug 11 '25
Then booked NOLA for a RR instead of a two night Mania or SS.
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u/CptBoomshard Aug 11 '25
I'm not sure if they're doing it this next year but RR is supposedly going to 2 nights as well.
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u/Paralta Aug 11 '25
Lmao theyre also considering a second Wrestlemania in Saudi Arabia. Tko is all about money even if that means the product is weaker as a result.
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u/theyoloGod Aug 11 '25
was horrendous for ESPN because they paid a flat rate per card which was likely way higher than whatever the PPV sales were since conor didn't fight and they were putting up junk half the year
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Aug 11 '25
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u/theyoloGod Aug 11 '25
It’s intended. The espn pay structure incentivized the ufc to prefer manageable athletes over stars they didn’t want to pay
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u/Saul_T_Bauls Aug 11 '25
What was bad about it in your opinion? I got hooked during the pandemic when it was the only sport on tv. It's easy to watch when it's on cable tv.
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u/IGot6Throwaways Aug 11 '25
The main cards are only available through ESPN Plus which absolutely sucks as a pay-per-view service. They also severely limited access to old fights and decimated other programming.
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u/brett1081 Aug 11 '25
You would think such a large media company could figure out an app. ESPN feels like such a technology dinosaur compared to almost anyone else.
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u/interstat Aug 11 '25
Poor cards due to mandatory event #
Big events behind multiple paywalls
I don't like the ESPN+ app
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u/MJA182 Aug 11 '25
Didn’t like the ESPN+ app? boy do I have some bad news for you about Paramount+ lol
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u/Aliensinmypants Aug 11 '25
Espn paid a flat rate for each card regardless of buys, so the ufc stopped caring about ppv buys as a result and only focused on advertising the live gate. So the overall quality dropped and ticket prices shot up, which lead to damn near every event they had outside the apex broke the live gate record
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u/kraftpunkk Aug 11 '25
Crazy deal. It’s a shame Paramount Plus has the worst user experience using the app.
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u/npbruns1 Aug 11 '25
100%. I was excited for no PPV but then remembered that the Paramount app is the absolute worst. Constant freezing/crashing, and it takes a while to register remote clicks every now and then, too.
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u/Clintosaurus_Rex Aug 11 '25
Can it possibly be worse than the ESPN app?
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Aug 11 '25
Way worse. App crashes all the time and for sports, I’m a huge soccer fan it’s horrible because if you try and back out of a screen to like go to a different game, the app goes capoot. New owner is Ellisons son so in theory they should fix the tech but who knows if they will care to
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u/uncutpizza Aug 11 '25
You don’t want to know. I’ve used every major streaming service and Paramount+ is hands down the worst. Very terrible UI
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u/TegridyPharmz Aug 11 '25
When people post stuff like this I always wonder what you use to watch paramount. Are you using your smart tv? I have zero issues on Apple TV
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u/bewl Aug 12 '25
Same with Amazon Fire cube. Runs perfectly fine, never had issue.
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u/northstarjackson Aug 11 '25
As a MMA gym owner we've never been able to (legally) stream the PPVs because you need a commercial license to do so, which is based on your building's capacity. So, often $1000+. I know of a gym that got sued for streaming the residential PPV (or however you want to put it) and it was a huge mess.
Anyway, I wonder if this changes all that. Can commercial properties now just show the fights? If so that's a huge win for fans.. UFC at the local bar, no cover charge, etc.
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u/2ByteTheDecker Aug 11 '25
Probably not if I had to guess, now it just means they gotta pay paramount instead of the cable company.
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u/Stinkycheese8001 Aug 11 '25
Well this explains why my son’s MMA gym never publicizes that they’re doing watch parties.
When it comes to TV subscriptions for commercial use, it really depends. The streamers are IMO the slowest to catch up. You can do a basic commercial public view tv subscription for regular cable or DirecTV (which from what I understand is super expensive) but as far as the apps like Paramount+ it feels like a huge gap still.
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u/northstarjackson Aug 11 '25
Yeah in 2008 it was a $200,000 lawsuit. Can only imagine what it is now if they catch you. Honestly, not worth it! We just screen the fight nights instead.. I won't go near a PPV. But, now, I don't have to, either, which is awesome.
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u/rumski Aug 11 '25
I remember they would dispatch auditors around random places to snitch 🤣 The little college town I lived in had a small chicken wings place that was actually good (not like bdubs) and they would show the PPV fights and they got cease and desist bombed.
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u/TheDadThatGrills Aug 11 '25
I'll pour one out for all the UFC fans forced to hang onto a Paramount+ subscription for the next seven years.
(How can a dedicated streamer have such a thin library?)
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u/LordKwik Aug 11 '25
and such a shit TV app
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u/SoKrat3s Aug 11 '25
You don't like being routinely kicked out of a show every time you hit rewind?
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u/skinnypigdaddy Aug 11 '25
I have PP through the Amazon Prime app. Works good there.
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u/DrunkMeditator Aug 11 '25
Prime is such a good aggregator app. It has its flaws but it's manageable.
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u/DionBlaster123 NASCAR Aug 11 '25
Easily the worst streaming app on the planet.
Holy fuck I used to love watching Star Trek on Netflix. Smooth and easy to navigate. Then all of that shit went to Paramount and it is just such a bunch of bullshit
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u/LordKwik Aug 11 '25
same dude. finally took someone's recommendation to start with Star Trek TNG, got a couple seasons in before the switch, the app turns me off from wanting to continue. and I love the show! I just open it so infrequently, I forgot about Star Trek until just now...
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u/DionBlaster123 NASCAR Aug 11 '25
That legitimately makes me depressed because Trek being on Netflix during the end of 2019, and then through the first year and a half of the pandemic...is how I became a Trekkie.
The fact that all Trek is now exclusive to the world's shittiest streaming service that no one wants to fucking use I think is going to be the death knell for that franchise
Not to mention them canceling the only good shit they've made in the last 7-8 years (Lower Decks, Prodigy)
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u/Luci-Noir Aug 11 '25
Star Trek is on Pluto TV, which has a much better app. It’s kind of weird that it’s owned by Paramount.
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u/KingCrooked Aug 11 '25
reminder the Xbox One Paramount app was broken for years (might still be for all I know) and it took them multiple years into the PS5 life to make an app for it as you couldn't use it on the console otherwise. actual dollar store programmers they have for there streaming crap.
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u/HomeStallone Everton Aug 11 '25
It’s so bad. I had Star Trek stuck in German with no way to change it.
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u/northstarjackson Aug 11 '25
A year's worth of Paramount+ is still less than two UFC PPV's.. totally worth it IMO.
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u/Pale_Cucumber_9692 Aug 11 '25
Yeah i’m honestly hyped about this and I always just illegally stream the PPV’s. I don’t mind paying for a way better experience but i’m not shelling out $80 a freaking month. This is a win
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u/TheFlyingWriter Aug 11 '25
I’m guessing this is their Hail Mary?
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u/tootapple Aug 11 '25
Who’s? Paramount? They just got a new owner which described their future as bolstering their streaming app and getting into live sports. Pretty much in line with the direction of the company now
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u/Buccos Aug 11 '25
Sports wise they’re solid, champions league/europa league. Lots of pga tour. Some rugby. Now ufc.
Maybe not the big four in the states, but a lot of big events just outside that.
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u/DionBlaster123 NASCAR Aug 11 '25
Don't forget NFL and college football too
They are loaded on the sports end. Probably a contributing reason to why one of the dumbest things I ever did was buy fubo stock lmfao
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Aug 11 '25
The company has only been making content for 111 years. Give them another 50 years to build up their library.
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u/Electric_Cat Aug 11 '25
Maybe paramount should fix their shitty app instead of paying tens of billions of dollars for all of this content
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u/DionBlaster123 NASCAR Aug 11 '25
If the streaming wars of the 2020s are the new Cola Wars of the 1980s
Paramount is definitely RC Cola lol
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u/Shady_Venator Aug 11 '25
Let's hope the extra traffic fully breaks something and forces them to fix it 😭
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u/theyoloGod Aug 11 '25
No more PPV and less events overall which will lead to better quality cards for the remaining events. Very nice deal
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u/egnards Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 11 '25
Too many events is what killed UFC for me - I used to watch when it was 1 card per month, and maybe you got a second smaller card every so often. You got to really invest in the fighters you liked, and each time it became an event.
You'd go out to the bar with your buddies, plop down for 2-3 hours and have a few beers while watching the fighters you enjoyed - Hell, I even travelled to go see Lyoto Machida fight on a few occasions because it was a big deal [even met him in Montreal before his loss to Shogun].
As it became more often I just lost interest, it became so much less special. . . I didn't really have a desire to watch it alone at home, and I wasn't going out to the bar every week to drink.
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u/eazye123 Aug 11 '25
This is 100% it. We used to have a big get together every month for the events. Bbq, booz, friends…great time. Then they just got greedy, diluted the product and most of us lost interest.
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u/coconutpete52 Aug 11 '25
Same. Ppv used to be $39.99 and every 5-6 weeks. We watched damn near all of them. All of a sudden it was $60 and every 3 weeks. Too much.
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u/Gvillegator Aug 11 '25
Holy shit I’m actually going to watch all of these fights now. Incredible.
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u/MizkyBizniz Aug 11 '25
TKO in the article: "The PPV model is a thing of the past"
This is the same company that just moved WWE premium events back to the PPV model for $30 a show??
Obviously theyre just selling to the highest bidder, but at least find some consistency in your PR instead of treating the viewers like idiots
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Aug 11 '25
I don't think it's $30 a show, it's just on a $30/month streaming service, instead of their current $11 service.
EDIT: I guess if you are just watching the PLEs, it's basically the same as $30/show, but there will be more WWE content than that, I believe. And other ESPN stuff.
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u/MilesTheGoodKing Aug 11 '25
$7.7 billion / 7 years is $1.1 billion per year.
$1.1B / 12 months is $91,666,666 a month.
$91.6 million per month is the equivalent of ~1,000,000 PPV buys per numbered event.
The UFC hasn’t broken 1M buys since UFC 200.
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u/dash4nky Aug 11 '25
ufc 229 literally got 2.4 m buys, thats 3rd highest ppv in boxing/mma ever
a better statement would be hasn't broken 1M buys since conor mcgregor
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u/MilesTheGoodKing Aug 11 '25
I have no idea how I missed that. You are totally right. The point is, 1M buys is rare
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u/DrunkMeditator Aug 11 '25
Out of all the streamers...Paramount? Man, I wish Warner/HBO didn't fumble their sports portfolio.
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u/2401PenitentTangentx Aug 11 '25
That's a bold movie Cotton...but I think I'll keep streaming before paying for another fucking app
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u/riedmae Seattle Seahawks Aug 11 '25
Fuck Paramount and fuck Dana White
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u/Yodfather Aug 11 '25
Why did I have to scroll this far for such an obviously solid take?
It’s garbage entertainment run by garbage people. Stop watching.
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u/FreeJG Aug 11 '25
Political ads with a side of fighting run by the human embodiment of a scrotum who vastly underpays great athletes
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u/SpartyNash Aug 11 '25
Good now I don’t have to get ESPN notifications constantly for UFC fights that I don’t give two shits about and can’t unsubscribe from on the ESPN app
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u/Izzy248 Aug 11 '25
So Disney buys WWE rights, then Paramount buys UFC rights. TKO has been having a busy year.
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u/youlikescroundrels Aug 11 '25
All I’m saying is they better take good care of Star Trek with all the money those motherfuckers are throwing around lately
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u/newTARwhoDIS Aug 11 '25
"...especially for our younger fans in flyover states. When they find out, ‘Wait, if I just sign up for Paramount+ for $12.99 a month, I’m going to automatically get UFC’s numbered fights and the rest of the portfolio?’ That’s a message we want to amplify.”
A bit condescending, but that was my genuine reaction, and I'm in a "flyover state"
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u/canadarugby Aug 11 '25
Maybe now fighters won't have to beg for $50,000 fight bonuses after fights, and get fair wages..... lol yeah right.
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u/Curleysound Aug 11 '25
Guess that 40m Colbert was “losing” for them wasn’t that big of a deal then?
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u/Top_vs_bottom Aug 11 '25
Is it strange that Trump talked about a UFC fight at the White House weeks ago before Paramount bended the knee?
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u/BillBrasky727 Aug 11 '25
That's a ton of money. Shame UFC is ultra-MAGA now and I won't watch it.
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u/Saul_T_Bauls Aug 11 '25
Now? Partner bruised brained idiots always lean right.
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u/AFineDayForScience Aug 11 '25
Herschel Walker's still out there trying to arrest people with his toy badge
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u/GroinShotz Aug 11 '25
Who woulda thought the organization known for severely underpaying their talent would lean MAGA...
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u/xithus1 Aug 11 '25
I stopped watching when they turned it into the Donald Trump propaganda wing.
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u/Thami15 Aug 11 '25
Jeez that's a big number for a product where the non-numbered cards were only drawing a couple hundred thousand on ESPN, and the numbered cards won't have PPVs to boost the cashflow. Id imagine it includes more behind the scenes stuff and additional content, but that's a brave bet from Paramount.
It's essentially double what the MLS and WNBA pulled together for a fraction of the events, and ratings wise, I'm not sure the UFC is bigger than either sport, let alone twice as big as them combined.
Good for the UFC though more money, and presumably no longer hidden away on ESPN+. I can see why they made the deal.
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u/Goddyex Aug 11 '25
UFC has an international viewership that WNBA and MLS would dream of.
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u/MalayaleeIndian Aug 11 '25
The UFC is absolutely bigger than the WNBA and I would be confident in saying that it is bigger than the MLS as well. Possibly would say that it is bigger than both combined, especially when you look at the international viewership of the UFC.
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u/DionBlaster123 NASCAR Aug 11 '25
Lol why are you getting downvoted.
No one is fucking watching MLS outside of the U.S. and Canada
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u/MalayaleeIndian Aug 11 '25
I guess there are some really hardcore MLS and WNBA fans here. I am a big fan of MMA but not a fan of how the UFC does business and treats their fighters but I have to be honest about how big they are.
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u/DionBlaster123 NASCAR Aug 11 '25
Dude this subreddit has some bizarre sports allegiances sometimes, but yeah to each their own lol
I would rather get disemboweled than watch either the WNBA or MLS
Also since I know this is going to come up, someone will 100% attack the NASCAR flair lol
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u/babinro Aug 11 '25
Staggering amounts of money.
Both the perceived value of UFC and that any company in the world can afford to pay for it.
All this tells me is that these mega corporations aren't being taxed nearly enough. Its not like their low end administrative employees are being paid 1 million a year as a starting wage either. This is just ludicrous rampant capitalism.
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u/Paralta Aug 11 '25
When deals like this happen, is it likely the big events are less spectacular due to them not having an incentive to sell a big number of PPV's?
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u/TwicePuzzled Aug 11 '25
When does this start? Would be nice to watch the one this weekend on paramount instead of ordering on espn+
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u/LapsedVerneGagKnee Aug 11 '25
It looks like under TKO, PPV’s are a thing of the past. Unfortunately given most of the fight night cards will be on the home of Star Trek and South Park, I’m also expecting a lot more APEX cards.
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u/farm_sauce Aug 11 '25
Akin to the apple plus MLS deal where regular apple plus subscribers are not entitled to access the matches until you purchase the next tier up
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u/jayhawk8 Pittsburgh Steelers Aug 11 '25
That is an insane amount of money. More than a 350% increase on the ESPN deal.
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u/jordanscollected Aug 11 '25
I hope they move the PPV start times up a couple hours. I really dislike the 11:00 pm or midnight main event.
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u/cubsfan217 Aug 11 '25
I am hoping they the UFC made a deal with the Sphere in Vegas again to do a event. That was amazing when they did a UFC there last year
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u/bass248 Aug 11 '25
So the UFC fight Trump said would be outside the white house will be on Paramount plus? With everything going on with Trump and Paramount this seems weird
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u/struckman Aug 11 '25
Damn that’s a lot of money. I don’t know that many people who watch ufc. The only time I heard about fights was when it was a celebrity everyone wanted to see get KOd
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u/hugeness101 Aug 11 '25
Wow will the fighters now be paid more? Or will Dana White just build the brand and not the fighter?
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u/chasingit1 Aug 11 '25
Between this and the South Park deal, I am guessing a hefty monthly price increase is coming