The UFC’s owners at TKO Group Holdings are expecting to have a deal done soon on the company’s new broadcast deal, which kicks off in 2026.
Currently at the end of a seven year partnership with ESPN, which included both pay-per-view events and a multitude of Fight Night cards, the UFC has been deep in negotiations with potential partners ever since an exclusive window with the Disney owned sports network expired in early 2025. There’s speculation that the UFC could potentially split up the new broadcast rights deal among multiple partners with a number of networks and streaming outlets interested in doing business with the mixed martial arts giant.
“What I can tell you on UFC is we are in the home stretch,” TKO president and chief operating officer Mark Shapiro said during a quarterly financial call on Wednesday. “We will provide an update on the UFC’s rights when we have something to announce.
“Our mission remains finding a balance between maximizing monetization and reach and as evidenced by our WWE [premium live event]-ESPN deal, the market for premium content, especially big event programming remains strong and it will remain strong with ESPN as well.”
The WWE deal announced on Wednesday moves the professional wrestling outfit’s biggest shows such as WrestleMania and SummerSlam to ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer streaming service launching on Aug. 21. The deal is reportedly worth $325 million per year — a significant increase from the $180 million per year currently being paid by Peacock — and WWE still has additional broadcast rights up for sale including a back library of events as well as six premium NXT events also up for grabs.
As far as timing goes, Shapiro downplayed that WWE’s deal somehow meant there was a hiccup with the UFC’s broadcast rights. Shapiro said TKO executives have been effectively working on multiple deals at the same exact time and WWE putting ink to paper with ESPN just happened to get finished before any agreements were made for UFC.
“As far as the timing goes, we’ve been in the market with essentially five properties at the same time,” Shapiro explained. “The UFC, which could be seen as one or two or three depending on how you look at it. You’ve got the numbered events and you’ve got the Fight Nights. That’s what ESPN has, two deals. Then you’ve got the WWE [premium live events] and then you’ve got Zuffa Boxing, our new boxing promotion and then you have [Professional Bull Riders], which as you know Dr. Phil went belly up and Merit Street went belly up as part of that, and we were left holding the bag with a contract of approximately $181 million over four years that we’ve had to try to find a new home for PBR. So we were really disadvantaged.
“So we’ve been in the market really with all five. Where they come, how they slot, where they sequence, that just happens to be where we are in terms of the stage of each of the deals and each of the conversations.”
Shapiro answered “unequivocally no” when asked if there’s been any unexpected difficulties regarding the UFC’s next broadcast deal.
Add to that, Shapiro also stated that he doesn’t believe one deal necessarily impacts another such as ESPN now making a huge financial investment in WWE, which could potentially preclude them from making the same kind of offer to the UFC.
While he won’t speak for Disney executives, he knows that ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro just recently praised the working relationship the sports network has shared with UFC ever since the deal started in 2018.
With the new ESPN streaming service launching soon, the network has only added to its overall portfolio — including the jaw-dropping deal with the NFL that includes taking over the NFL Network, broadcasting the popular NFL RedZone channel and adding more NFL games every season.
“I do know that Jimmy was quoted yesterday when asked about this specifically in the trades, he relishes the relationship with TKO, specifically pointed to the success they’ve had with UFC and what that did for ESPN+ and what they believe that and WWE can do for their strategy moving forward,” Shapiro said. “I don’t think it rules them out [from bidding for UFC], his words.”
Beyond ESPN, the UFC is expected to have numerous other suitors interested including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Warner Bros.
