UFC and ESPN will open an unique, three-month negotiating window in Jan. 2025.
Whether or not or not The Walt Disney Firm can lock up one other longterm streaming contract with the world’s most precious fight sports activities promotion — working underneath the TKO Group Holdings banner — all is determined by what sort of coin ESPN is prepared to cough up.
The extra doubtless situation is UFC hits the open market in April and appears for the best bidder, which may embody widespread streaming providers like Amazon and Netflix — the latter of which is able to function the brand new house for WWE programming in early 2025.
“Yeah, everyone seems to be kicking the tires,” White informed Sports activities Enterprise Journal. “And over the nevertheless many final years that we’ve been collectively, I’ve had some headbutting with ESPN, however I really feel like we’re in a extremely good place proper now and I’m actually proud of my relationship with them and the best way that this complete factor is working. We’ll see the way it performs out. I believe everyone seems to be kicking the tires and is concerned about making a bid.”
UFC beforehand aired on Spike TV and FOX earlier than touchdown on ESPN.
“We see the demand for dwell sports activities is outstripping the availability of premium sports activities content material,” TKO Group Holdings President Mark Shapiro mentioned throughout a latest monetary replace. “It’s not likely a quantity product. It’s a premium quantity product. Kind of just like the NFL was earlier than Thursday Evening Soccer. It was pushed by shortage. I believe UFC advantages the identical method. We’re additionally each directly a subscriber acquisition software and a churn antidote. We’re engaging to each digital and linear and we’re year-round. We’re optimistic on the potential package deal we’ll find yourself with.”
If UFC was price $7 billion in 2018, how a lot may it command in 2025? We’ll discover out in just some months.
