UFC Seeks More Than $1 Billion a Year in Next TV Rights Deal
The Ultimate Fighting Championship is looking to get more than $1 billion a year from its next media-rights deal, according to people with knowledge of the matter, more than double what the current contract holder ESPN pays.
(Bloomberg) -- The Ultimate Fighting Championship is looking to get more than $1 billion a year from its next media-rights deal, according to people with knowledge of the matter, more than double what the current contract holder ESPN pays.
The UFC’s deal with Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN expires at the end of 2025, and the two sides are entering an exclusive negotiating window later this month. The mixed-martial-arts league had already begun informal conversations, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private talks.
TKO Group Holdings Inc., which owns the UFC, is looking to take advantage of a strong market for sports rights. Most of the major US leagues already have long-term deals, making the UFC one of the biggest sports packages on the market for the next few years.
“Discussions around our upcoming US domestic rights renewal have not yet begun, and as such we have shared no expectations regarding price,” the company said on Jan. 7 in an emailed statement. “We are in an exclusive negotiating window with ESPN through mid-April 2025, and look forward to productive negotiations when the time comes.”
Shares of TKO rose as much as 2.8% to $146.38 in New York.
The UFC would like to remain in business with ESPN, which has one deal for regular matches, many of which air on its namesake cable network, and another for pay-per-view events on its streaming service, according to the people. Those two deals together pay the UFC about $450 million a year. Being aligned with ESPN, the most powerful sports-media company, has boosted the popularity of UFC, which for years operated more on the fringes of mainstream culture.
“We started on ESPN seven years ago and had a rocky relationship in the beginning,” UFC Chief Executive Officer Dana White explained on Bloomberg TV in November. “But now I couldn’t be happier at ESPN, it’s a great relationship and I wouldn’t mind staying with them.”
Yet the biggest US sports leagues have split their rights among multiple media companies in recent years to maximize revenue. The NFL is in business with at least half a dozen different partners, while the NBA just closed a new rights deal with three. TKO has talked about dividing its rights between multiple parties.
The next media rights deal will be the largest ever for UFC and is vital for TKO. Shares of the company climbed 74% in 2024 thanks to optimism about the sports-media landscape.
TKO CEO Ari Emanuel and President Mark Shapiro are taking the lead on the negotiations and believe they have at least four or five prospective buyers for the rights, the people said. They include Amazon.com Inc., Netflix Inc. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., which just lost the rights to the NBA, as well as Google’s YouTube, at least for the pay-per-view matches.
All of those companies are looking for sports rights to boost their streaming services. ESPN is about to introduce a new service, while Amazon has emerged as the biggest buyer of sports rights among technology companies. Last year, TKO signed a $5 billion, 10-year deal to put its World Wrestling Entertainment program, Raw, exclusively on Netflix starting in 2025.
(Updates with TKO shares in fifth paragraph.)
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First Published:11 Jan 2025, 01:30 AM IST
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