Who Will Corner the Octagon? UFC Sparks Bidding War?
By Jared Fong | 26 May, 2025
UFC CEO Dana White presents Alex Pereira with the UFC Lightweight Championship.
In 2018, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and ESPN signed a staggering 5 year, $1.5 billion deal for the UFC’s broadcast rights. Since then, the UFC has aired its events on ESPN and its corresponding streaming service, ESPN+, which hosts all of the UFC’s major events on pay-per-view. At the end of 2025, this deal with ESPN is set to expire, and in April 2025, the UFC’s exclusive negotiating rights window with ESPN expired, triggering a fierce competition among major media companies to secure its broadcast rights. As streaming giants and traditional networks enter the fray, the outcome of these talks could reshape the future of sports broadcasting.
Led by CEO Dana White, UFC was founded in 1993 and has become the premier mixed martial arts (MMA) organization. The company’s structure and rising popularity have made it a prime asset of interest for major media companies. For one, unlike other major sports leagues, such as the NFL and NBA, the UFC has no offseason and provides fans with exciting fights year-round. Furthermore, the UFC has a massive global outreach, and its popularity spans far beyond the United States. The company sells out events all over the world, from the United Kingdom to Brazil to France to Abu Dhabi. Many of the company’s top fighters are not from America; for example, Lightweight Champion Islam Makhachev comes from Russia, former Featherweight Champion Ilia Topuria is from Spain, and former Light Heavyweight Champion Alex Pereira is from Brazil, all of whom have the strong support of their home countries on their backs.
UFC 317 will be headlined by Illia Topuria and Charles Oliveira for the UFC Lightweight Championship.
In recent years, the company has soared to massive popularity. The UFC broke all sorts of company records and saw $1.406 billion in total revenue, an increase of 9% from 2023. The majority of the fans who have contributed to the UFC’s success are young people ages 18-34. 40% of the UFC’s fanbase, the largest percentage of all sports leagues, falls within this demographic. Adults aged 18-34 are the key demographic that media companies want because they spend heavily, shape social trends, and represent future value. While the UFC does have a fair number of controversies, like fighter pay and their view on politics, the pros outweigh the cons for companies looking to sign the UFC. Because of the UFC’s globalization and year-round operations that have brought the company to new heights and given it a fan base full of young people, many major media companies see the value in the UFC’s broadcasting rights.
UFC 306 at the Sphere in Las Vegas broke the company’s live gate record with $21,829,245.
The Suitors
With the UFC currently airing primarily on ESPN+ and live sports shifting away from traditional cable television to direct-to-consumer streaming services, the UFC will likely air on some sort of streaming service at the beginning of 2026. Many companies are rumored to be negotiating with the UFC, but the most notable are ESPN, Amazon, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBC Universal, and Netflix.
ESPN is already the current home of the UFC. While their current deal is up and the exclusive negotiating rights window for a renewal has closed, that does not mean ESPN and the UFC are parting ways. While the current deal brought many sports fans to the UFC, what ESPN has going against it is that its current deal with the UFC has not been all sunshine and rainbows. Firstly, UFC fans were frustrated with the cost of watching the UFC during its tenure with ESPN, having to pay $11.99 a month for ESPN+ and an additional $79.99 for pay-per-view events. Additionally, there were several times when ESPN+ had broadcast issues during big pay-per-view events, leaving fans who paid lots of money for the event unable to watch. However, ESPN is still the largest major sports network and hosts national broadcasts and playoff games for the NFL, NHL, NBA, and MLB. ESPN recently announced the launch of its own streaming service, coming in the fall of 2025. Keeping the UFC’s rights under their ownership would keep ESPN at the top of sports broadcasting and bring many UFC fans to their new streaming service.
“I’ve had some headbutting with ESPN, but I feel like we are in a really good place right now, and I’m happy with my relationship with them,” Dana White reflects on the ESPN deal.
In the last several years, Amazon has begun expanding its catalog on Amazon Prime to include live sports. The company’s most significant move was acquiring the rights to Thursday Night Football, which has been airing live on Prime Video since the start of the 2022 NFL season. While viewership has been increasing for Thursday Night Football since it began on Amazon, it’s still below what it was when it aired on FOX due to many subpar matchups. These disappointing numbers may prevent the UFC from wanting to sign, to avoid losing viewership like the NFL did when they first joined. However, Amazon has also bolstered its catalog with the NHL’s Monday Night Hockey for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. Additionally, Amazon started distributing pay-per-views for All Elite Wrestling early in 2025. Starting during the 2025-2026 season, the NBA will debut on Amazon Prime for the play-in tournament, playoffs, and black friday game. Acquiring the UFC’s rights would be a major move for Amazon as it would signify to the industry that the company is becoming a major player in sports broadcasting.
Warner Bros. Discovery is another company heavily rumored to be in talks with the UFC. Warner Bros. is the parent company of Turner Sports and airs all of its live sports events on its TV networks (TNT, TruTV, TBS) and the streaming service MAX. Warner Bros has a significant share of live sports. The company is in control of national broadcasts and playoff games for the NBA, NHL, and MLB (the NBA contract is up after the 2024-25 season and won’t be renewed), March Madness, and weekly TV shows for All Elite Wrestling. The UFC partnering with Warner Bros. would give the UFC the flexibility to continue airing on both traditional cable TV and direct-to-consumer streaming, while simultaneously offering Warner Bros a way to fill the void that is being left by the NBA’s departure.
The final company that the UFC is rumored to be in talks with is Netflix. Looking to keep its place as the largest direct-to-consumer streaming service and to keep up with its competition, Netflix has recently begun adding live sports and entertainment events to its catalog. Netflix has become the home for the NFL’s Christmas Day games. Netflix also has dipped its toes into live combat sports when it broadcast the controversial Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson event. The way the broadcast for this fight played out may deter the UFC from signing with Netflix, as the stream was overloaded with consumers and had significant buffering issues. The disappointing broadcast for Paul vs Tyson did not stop Netflix from adding live sporting events to their catalog as most notably, Netflix made headlines when it signed a 10-year, $5 billion deal with the WWE (which is owned by TKO, the same parent company as the UFC) for the rights to make Netflix the home for Monday Night Raw in the United States and all WWE live events internationally. Because of Netflix’s past work in combat sports and working relationship with the UFC’s parent company, TKO, Netflix is aware of the immense value the UFC can bring to the table, making it a prime target for the streaming giant.
TKO made a groundbreaking move, moving WWE’s Monday Night Raw to Netflix, as Raw was the longest-running weekly show on television.
While not directly involved in rumors, it would not be surprising if NBC Universal entered into conversations with the UFC. NBC Universal has been broadcasting sports since 1939 on its main TV channel, NBC. Recently, the company has expanded to broadcasting some of its largest sporting events, like Sunday Night Football and the Olympics, on Peacock in addition to NBC. In 2024, it was announced that the NBA will be returning to NBC and Peacock at the beginning of the 2025-26 season for Opening Night, national broadcast games, All-Star Weekend, and the playoffs. In addition, NBC Universal also has a working relationship with TKO. In the United States, all WWE premium live events air on Peacock, while Friday Night SmackDown is on the USA Network weekly. Expanding its catalog to bring in the UFC would be very beneficial for NBC as it would expand its audience significantly.
A Potential Deal
According to Bloomberg, the UFC is reportedly looking to bring in $1 billion per year when it signs its new broadcast deal. With all these options on the table, the UFC has a ton of leverage in negotiations, and it would not be shocking if it got the number it was looking for. However, what the potential new deal will look like is completely up in the air. There’s a possibility that the UFC sells all its rights to one company, as it did with its current deal with ESPN. With that being said, however, CEO Dana White has stated that the UFC is interested in splitting up its rights with multiple companies, like other major sports leagues do.
Both Dana White and TKO CEO, Ari Emmauel, will play pivotal roles in negotiating the UFC’s new deal.
If the UFC chooses to sign with one company, personally, I think that signing with Netflix is the most logical choice. With more and more people cutting the cord to traditional television and switching to streaming services, most of the market for consumers of the UFC is on streaming services. Because Netflix has the largest subscriber base out of all streaming services, with 301.63 million subscribers worldwide, moving to the streaming giant would bring the most amount of eyes to the UFC. Additionally, a move to Netflix makes sense because of its working relationship with TKO. The company already has the WWE on Netflix, and it would be beneficial for TKO to have their two biggest products on the same platform. Both the WWE and UFC on Netflix would make fan overlap very easy. While some UFC fans may be concerned with the quality of the stream because of Paul vs Tyson, Netflix has learned from that experience, and their live broadcasts for the NFL and WWE have run smoothly, something that would be expected to continue for potential UFC broadcasts.
If the UFC were to split up its media rights, I believe that Netflix would be the main home base for major UFC events, while ESPN or Amazon would get the smaller shows. A world where the UFC sticks with ESPN makes a lot of sense. While ESPN does not have as large an audience as Netflix does, it is still considered the leading sports network and has built up a consistent fan base for the UFC over the last several years. Dana White has expressed that the UFC and ESPN have a strong relationship, and it would not be surprising if the UFC stays with what they know works. As for Amazon, Prime Video is the second-largest streaming service with 220 million subscribers, which, like Netflix, would bring many eyeballs to the UFC.
I don’t see the UFC ending up with Warner Bros. Discovery because the company has pivoted away from combat sports after ending HBO boxing in 2018. I also do not see NBC Universal signing the UFC because I believe the NBA is its new shiny toy and the investment they currently want to put the most resources into.
The Future of the Industry
The UFC’s new deal will cause a lot of shake up in the sports broadcasting industry. Firstly, it may change how we consume live combat sporting events as a whole. Firstly, this deal may be the final dagger for pay-per-view (PPV) events. The pay-per-view model has been around since 1981 and has been the primary way to watch major combat sporting events ever since. Recently, the PPV model has been on the decline due to the rise of illegal streaming and the immense costs of PPV’s. If the UFC were to stray away from it by placing all of its major events on a streaming service, boxing would most likely do the same to keep up with its combat sports competition. The idea of paying to watch a single combat sporting event may come to an end in the very near future.
Additionally, the new UFC deal can also change where we watch live sports. Since sports started being aired live, they were always on traditional cable television networks like ABC, NBC, and CBS. However, the industry has been changing over the last few years with more and more sports leagues moving some of their broadcasts to streaming services. The UFC has the opportunity to set the tone for the sports broadcasting industry. If the UFC chooses to go to a major streaming service, like Netflix or Amazon, it could influence other leagues to follow its footsteps. A few of the major sports leagues have TV deals that will expire shortly within the next few years. The NFL has the choice to, and most likely will, opt out of its contracts in 2029. The NHL’s deals with ESPN and Turner Sports expire after the 2027-2028 season. The MLB’s deal with ESPN is up after the current 2025 season, while its deals with FOX and Turner Sports will end after 2028. These leagues have a chance to see how the UFC deal plays out and if the company does extraordinary numbers on a streaming service, other leagues will have no choice but to follow the UFC into the world of streaming. This would create a world where sports are gone from traditional cable and scattered across different streaming services.
