Mark Shapiro: Zuffa Boxing media rights deal announcement expected in next 2-3 weeks

Zuffa Boxing is finally stepping into the ring. On Saturday, the Saudi Arabia-funded and TKO-promoted boxing league will host its debut event with the Canelo Álvarez vs. Terence Crawford super fight at Allegiant Stadium.

But while the show’s main event is arguably the biggest traditional boxing match as one could book in 2025, the future of the promotion still includes plenty of unknowns. But according to TKO president Mark Shapiro, we should know more soon — especially when it comes to its media rights deal.

“We hope to have an announcement in the next two to three weeks on what we’re doing with boxing,” Shapiro said while speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference on Wednesday.

Shapiro noted that all but two of the fights on the card will feature fighters already under contract with Zuffa, with the main event being one of the exceptions. That formula seems to provide a glimpse into what the boxing league will look like moving forward and how it plans to package its upcoming media rights packages.

“Zuffa Boxing, which will be our league, will be about 12 to 16 fights per year, and we are in the market right now selling media rights to those 12 to 16 fights, and then we will monetize that across the board again in partnership with the Saudis,” Shapiro said. “Separate and apart from that will be these super fights like Canelo-Crawford that we have this weekend, where we’re working for a fee to be essentially their promoter and their producer and their media rights-seller of the business.”

Mark Shapiro: We hope to have an announcement in the next 2-3 weeks on what we are doing with boxing .

Later:

Zuffa Boxing, which will be our league, will be about 12–16 fights per year, and we are in the marketplace right now selling media rights to those 12–16 fights, and… pic.twitter.com/P2zwN2rLY1

— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) September 10, 2025

That setup should sound familiar. Effectively, it’s the same model that TKO currently uses with UFC and WWE, selling their baseline programming (UFC Fight Night, WWE Raw and SmackDown) separately from Premium Live Events, allowing the company to both increase revenue via multiple packages while also diversifying its portfolio of media rights partners.

Between Zuffa’s status as an unproven entity and boxing’s current lack of star power, replicating the same success that TKO has found with UFC and WWE could prove easier said than done. Then again, TKO’s track record when it comes to securing hefty media rights deals for combat sports speaks for itself, as evidenced by the company’s $196 per share stock price as of Thursday morning.

As for its likeliest partners, Front Office Sports reported in August that Paramount — which recently inked a $7.7 billion deal with UFC — had emerged as a frontrunner to partner with the boxing league. Zuffa’s preexisting relationship with Netflix, which will stream Saturday’s super fight, is also of note.