While we don’t yet know where the UFC’s rights will be after this year, more clarity is emerging on the timeline and likely destinations. In fact, perhaps the biggest takeaway from UFC president and CEO Dana White’s comments to Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal Friday is that the circuit is probably going to sell media rights to more than one partner, a contrast to their current deal with ESPN:
Here are White’s specific comments from Stern’s piece:
Asked by SBJ how talks were going, White said: “Everything is going well — we’re happy with all the discussions we’re having.” Pressed on whether UFC would most likely end up with multiple partners, White said: “I don’t know — I don’t know yet, but yes, it’s likely.”
Leagues selling their rights to multiple partners has become a bit of a trend. We’ve recently seen that with the NBA (from ESPN and TNT to ESPN, NBC, and Amazon), NASCAR (adding TNT and Amazon to their NBC and Fox deals), the NFL (adding in Netflix and YouTube).
While it seems likely that ESPN will retain some amount of UFC rights if the network can find an acceptable package and price, elements of the ESPN deal (especially around technical issues with ESPN+ pay-per-views) have long been criticized. As per a Puck report from John Ourand earlier this month, there’s been strong interest from TNT Sports, Netflix, and Amazon as well, so the UFC has a lot of potential suitors.
One issue with going to multiple partners is the number of subscriptions fans will need to watch UFC’s content. It can be tougher for fans if a league goes from having every event with one partner to having events on several.
At any rate, we should find out where the UFC will wind up soon. White told Stern that talks could be resolved anywhere from the near future to September.