Less than a week after Skydance Media completed its merger with Paramount, it has secured its first major rights deal — a seven-year pact with the UFC.
Paramount and UFC parent company TKO announced Monday a seven-year media rights deal worth $1.1 billion annually that will shift all UFC events to Paramount+ and CBS. The streaming service will carry all 13 UFC marquee numbered events and 30 fight nights, with select numbered events simulcast on the CBS broadcast network.
UFC will abandon the pay-per-view model as part of this deal, instead making its numbered events available for no additional charge on Paramount+. Under the current UFC media rights deal with ESPN, which reportedly paid about $550 million/year, numbered events required an additional fee beyond the base cost of an ESPN+ subscription.
“Paramount’s advantage lies in the expansive reach of our linear and streaming platforms,” Paramount chairman/CEO David Ellison said in a statement. “Live sports continue to be a cornerstone of our broader strategy — driving engagement, subscriber growth, and long-term loyalty, and the addition of UFC’s year-round must-watch events to our platforms is a major win.”
TKO’s agreement with Paramount occurs shortly after the company’s WWE reached a deal with ESPN to stream its premium live events on its soon-to-launch direct-to-consumer service reportedly worth $1.6 billion per year. Earlier in the year, WWE officially began streaming Raw events on Netflix under a 10-year deal worth $5 billion. WWE and UFC are both subsidiaries of TKO Group Holdings, a sports and entertainment company that was formed out of a $21.4 billion merger and is led by executive chair and chief executive officer Ari Emanuel.
“We believe wholeheartedly in David’s vision and look forward to being in business with a company that will prioritize technology as a means to enhance storytelling and the overall viewing experience,” Emmanuel said in a statement.
UFC content takes place throughout the year and could serve to facilitate an increase in the total share of television viewing that takes place on Paramount. Nielsen data from the month of June illustrates that Paramount platforms (Paramount+, PlutoTV) garnered 2% of total day television viewing among P2+, the third consecutive month with a decline in this regard.
According to its latest earnings report, Paramount+ has 77.7 million subscribers to the platform, which represented a decline of 1.3 million subscribers from the previous quarter. In an interview with CNBC, TKO Group Holdings president and chief operating officer Mark Shapiro called the pay-per-view model “a thing of the past.”
Upon the completion of the Skydance-Paramount deal, the entities negotiated the agreement for UFC premium numbered events in 48 hours, Shapiro told CNBC. The initial belief was that these events would be sold to another partner and that Paramount would acquire rights for the 30 fight nights. In addition, Shapiro divulged to CNBC “Squawk on the Street” that “likely all of the numbered events” will be simulcast on CBS.
Ellison told CNBC that UFC is “a unicorn asset that comes up about once a decade.” In addition, Paramount is said to have interest in purchasing the international rights to the property as well.
