The UFC is set to begin a new chapter at the start of 2026 thanks to some ground-breaking news.
Dana White announced the promotion’s new broadcast deal last month, that will see the promotion make some big changes going forward.
With the MMA leader now finding a home on Paramount Plus, fans will be able to tune in to every UFC event through a subscription with no additional PPV costs.
A current UFC champion has already signed a new contract since the deal was made official, with there being a lot of talk about how things will be different next year.
Some more details about the negotiation process to make this move happen were recently revealed.
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TKO’s Mark Shapiro says remaining with ESPN wasn’t going to be an option when revealing negotiation details
It’s fair to say that some people were taken aback when hearing the news that Paramount was the new home of the UFC.
The streaming service has been making some big moves as of late, but it wasn’t necessarily considered to be one of the favorites in the broadcasting rights race.
Of course, this considerable shift away from the PPV format has led to a lot of debate about what impact this will have on the fighters and whether it benefits the promotion by giving them more power.
One thing that is clear from TKO president Mark Shapiro’s latest comments is that moving to a streaming platform like Paramount looked to be a very strong possibility.
Shapiro recently stated, as reported by MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin, that they were confident that things were going to change one way or another because they did not believe that they would be re-signing with ESPN.
The TKO president suggests that they knew during the negotiations that ESPN wasn’t going to compete with the other offers they were receiving.
He also remarked that along with Paramount, conversations were held with the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and several unnamed other parties.
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TKO also provided a broadcast deal update on Zuffa Boxing
The latest TKO update also saw the topic of Zuffa Boxing come up ahead of this weekend’s huge clash between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford.
Dana White recently detailed his plans for the promotion where he hopes to sign up-and-coming fighters and build them before they appear on blockbuster events like Saturday’s card at Allegiant Stadium.
It was noted by Damon Martin that TKO is hoping to have a separate broadcast deal in place for the launch of Zuffa Boxing within the next two or three weeks.
We also don’t know where the likes of Dana White’s Contender Series will be ending up at this moment in time.