The Rumored Details Of The UFC's New TV Deal Are Insane

Take this with a grain of salt, because it’s from Terez Owens and doesn’t necessarily look legit, but it very well could be. Here’s their report…

Yeeeaaah, so uh, that’d be an industry-changing television deal right there. Rights split between ESPN and NBC Sports, who’d pay for all production costs and get FightPass prelims moved to their streaming platforms as well as one season of Dana White’s Contender Series per year EACH, and then the biggest things: six pay-per-views a year, weight divisions added (Women’s 105lbs/Men’s 165lbs) to help fill out Fight Nights cards, and both ESPN and NBC Sports will own exclusive rights to specific fighters.

I honestly don’t even know where to begin with this. Six pay-per-views a year sounds AMAZING, and I think everyone would agree with that. They’ll all be more stacked with fights deserving of our money, all feel more special (like they used to), and there will likely be no “one fight shows”. ESPN and NBC Sports owning the exclusive rights to specific fighters sounds HORRIBLE though. This ain’t the WWE where you can split up the rosters into RAW and SmackDown and just make sure there’s always a title available on both brands. It’s the Ultimate Fighting Championship where the best fighters in the world are supposed to fight the best fighters in the world. If Khabib Nurmagomedov is drafted to NBC and Conor McGregor is drafted to ESPN (I know they’re too high level to ever appear on television, it’s just an example), can they never fight? How are paths to the championships going to work now? Are there two sets of rankings? Two belts? The ESPN Welterweight Championship, is that gonna be a thing? If that’s the case, everything’s going to start getting muddied like they are in boxing, and shit’s gonna go downhill fast.

As far as prelims moving to the networks’ streaming platforms, extra weight classes, and the Contender Series replacing The Ultimate Fighter, I don’t mind any of that. I’m very in-favor of more weight classes, because you all know how much I hate dangerous cutting, but the other two I could give a shit less about.

I did hear months back that FOX was not too keen on renewing with the UFC and possibly focusing their attention towards the WWE instead, and that NBC Sports was interested in them, so that’s the one thing that makes me think that this could be true. We’ll just have to wait and see now.