The (UFC) Ultimate Fighting Championship was sold by the Fertitta’s last year for a staggering four billion dollars, to new owners WME-IMG, after a record breaking 2016. However with the absence of Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor, 2017 hasn’t been anything close to what they’d hoped for.
Without question the new UFC owners are looking to increase their television rights fee’s exponentially when they sign a new deal, and that time is rapidly approaching. In fact, they’re now free to negotiate with other networks.
Under the deal they signed with Fox in 2011, the UFC receives $115 million dollars a year, but they want a longer commitment and four times more money when they sign a new deal.
“When the UFC was for sale earlier this summer, the company told potential buyers that it expected to see a nearly fourfold increase in its media rights revenue. Its magic number is $450 million a year, a potentially staggering increase from the $115 million annual average that Fox Sports now pays, according to several media and UFC sources.” said the article posted on the Sports Journal website.
“The package the UFC will take to market will include the rights to four annual broadcast windows that FOX now holds, six annual cable events and weekly programming on FOX Sports 1, plus the UFC’s over-the-top Fight Pass service. It is not expected to include the UFC’s lucrative pay-per-view business, which will likely be retained by WME-IMG. But some media executives believe any winning bidder will have more of a say in what matches will be part of the UFC’s pay-per-view events. Whether a network will share in some of the PPV revenue is a deal point that will be negotiated, sources said. The new package also could include the significant change of having the networks produce the events, sources said. The UFC now pays all production costs, so that change would increase costs for the media partner.”
