TKO president: CBS ‘likely’ to simulcast all numbered UFC events

Monday morning, UFC parent company TKO announced a landmark seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights agreement with Paramount Global under new owner David Ellison. Now, details of the deal are coming to light.

In an interview with CNBC on Monday, TKO president Mark Shapiro revealed that all numbered UFC events, which are pay-per-view under UFC’s current agreement with ESPN+, will “likely” simulcast on the CBS broadcast network. This is a slight departure from the announcement, which stated “select numbered events” would be simulcast on CBS.

“It was important to us to have CBS play a big component in this,” Shapiro told CNBC’s Squawk on the Street. “As they’ve laid out, this is Paramount+ exclusively, but CBS will have simulcast on many of the fights and likely all of the numbered events, which are formerly the pay-per-view fights.”

Should Shapiro’s characterization of the deal prove accurate, the UFC’s new agreement with Paramount would mark the widest distribution the MMA circuit has ever seen by a wide margin. As it stands, the only linear television exposure UFC sees are under card bouts on ESPN before pushing viewers to ESPN+ for the main event, and Fight Nights, which typically feature less prominent fighters.

“We’re going old school here,” Shapiro continued, “Jimmy the Greek, Brent Musberger, CBS Sports, all that great history. They have the Masters, right? They have Super Bowl and NFL, they have Final Four, we like that neighborhood.”

This, of course, is very fan-friendly, but raises questions about Paramount’s strategy. Paramount+ will now be the home to all UFC content from the numbered events to fight nights. But if CBS is simulcasting all of the circuit’s best content, the question becomes how many UFC fans will subscribe to Paramount+ for the rest of the content.

That calculation might play a large role in determining how many premier UFC events ultimately end up on CBS. Given that this deal was negotiated in just 48 hours, per TKO, it’s unlikely that the exact terms of the agreement have been hammered out. And while Paramount will likely be happy to enjoy the ratings windfall that UFC events can bring to CBS, it’d also likely want to save some of those events to drive Paramount+ subscriptions.