MMA Fighting - BREAKING: UFC To End Pay-Per-View Model With New $7.7 Billion Paramount+ Deal

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

UFC and CEO Dana White announced on Monday morning that they've signed an exclusive new deal with Paramount+ for $7.7 billion, which begins in 2026, and that the pay-per-view model will go away with it. Following the massive news MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee react to the UFC's new deal, and what it all could mean. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Alexander K. Lee: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@AlexanderKLee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the channel. Let's begin with a word association game, shall we? Tulsa King, Mobland, Barrest, CSI Saskatoon, the Ultimate Fighting Championship? Yes, the common theme is paramount because beginning in 2026, the UFC's United States home for streaming and TV is paramount. Is Paramount? Is Paramount Plus? Massive news dropping this morning. 13 numbered events. Notice how I phrase that. 13 numbered events. 30 fight night cards.

all exclusively streaming on Paramount Plus. And as big as that news is, remember how I just called them numbered events a few seconds ago? These numbered events are no longer pay-per-view events. Beginning in 2026, the pay-per-view model will be no more for the UFC. It will be an all-encompassing package, a la, I guess, the WPEC talk model to some degree at the premium events. Seven-year deal, average annual value of one.

1.1 billion dollars per year. And wow, absolutely wow. Hat is off. If I didn't have headset on, I would take my hat off to the UFC. I would take my hat off to Paramount who storms the damn castle at the last minute. At the last minute, I didn't even think they were a top five player in this conversation. But here we are, Paramount Plus standing at the top of the podium with the gold medal. So much to talk about here.

I am Mike Kekin, joining me to react to this news. my best friend, Mr. Alexander Kay Lee, aka good morning. It's nice to wake up and hear the birds singing, the sun shining, and a new UFC TV deal in place here in the United States, right? This is crazy. This is crazy. I guess the timing isn't like that strange. I think we knew, I believe the last update we got from Ari or Shapiro,

whoever it is, I forget. I think it's always doing the talk in his end of summer. end of summer and we're getting there right so it wasn't surprising the news was going to come but yes uh here you go you wake up on a on a on a on a monday morning and you get this whopper of a deal paramount plus uh we actually don't even have that in canada so that's kind of interesting uh well i'll talk more about sort of the implications for canadians later we don't have a lot of details there yet obviously um and i would always say uh follow the great aaron stetter on twitter who's uh you know obviously locked in he works for sports net uh has a good relationship with the ufc if there's any update on that front as far as like

major implications for us up north. You know, that's probably the guy to go to. But I'm definitely keeping my eye on that. Man, Mike, when, you know, Damon and I were sort of calculating odds for this, we did an odds article back in April. Obviously, Netflix was the leader. I think we had ESPN second, you know, just staying home where they are. Amazon Prime was up there.

We had Paramount as like part of the field. We did like the field at the end, you know, and that was like plus 2,000 odds. So, you know, not totally insane. Like any, any player with money, we obviously said certainly has a possibility, but we were almost joking about Paramount. I wrote this. I said, it'd be funny if they teamed up with Paramount because, one, that's where Belt or May went to die. And two, because Paramount, as a lot of people have noted on social media, this is the funny joke. Now, Paramount was Spike TV.

You know, they are back at one of their former homes, which is just so hilarious. And, yeah, I did not see this one coming at all again. It had as part of the field. We didn't even give it its own write-up. we had a with a bunch of other networks. So obviously that's a massive deal and it came out of nowhere. But I guess one of the things that was really surprising about this is not just Paramount. It's the fact that I think we all sort of predicted a lot of the fan base and a lot of us talking on our shows that when they sign this new deal, it's going to be like WWE, right?

It's not just going to be one network. It's going to be multiple networks. We're going to have maybe pay-per-views on one side. We'll have some fight nights over here, and maybe the apex cards over here, along with the Ultimate Fighter, and the contender series, and ancillary program and programming,

and then maybe the libraries on another different channel. Like, they just spread it out in so many different ways. But to see one entity just come out and no Netflix, no ESPN, at least as of right now, are you surprised that it didn't go to multiple players, that it was just one entity stepping in and just saying,

you want 7.7 billion UFC? That's our offer. Take it or leave it. I'm really surprised. Especially because we just saw sort of how WW was handled. And don't get you wrong, they're very different products. They're very different products as far as how they're broadcast, how they're formatted. Obviously, the fan base, it's very different.

You know, WWE has like five different shows a week. So it kind of made more sense for them to diversify like, oh, here's where Ross is going to land. Here's where Smackdown's going to land. Because I think I had to look up some information. year. Raw is on Netflix, of course. There's a huge 10-year, $5 billion deal. So compare that to UFC, right? Seven years and seven million. So UFC's getting a billion per year. We thought the, the raw deal was massive, which it was, and now that's already kind of a beat by the UFC situation. But again, it is a different thing we're talking about here. Smackdowns on NBC Universal or something.

PLEs are now on, will now be on a premium live events, by the way, guys. Get used to that in NBA fans. Because like Mike said, supposedly no more paper views in the U.S. These are now, I think we'll be going forward as like premium live events or PLEs or whatever. I think we're all going to keep calling the pay-per-views for a while. It's just out of habit. Anyway, the W-E-1-E-1-1-1-1-Disc-SP-ing,

direct streaming, one of the other direct-streaming things. NXT's on CW, I think that's still thing. So it made a lot of sense for W-E to do this. I thought it would have made sense for UFC2, but when you think about it, they don't have quite as many distinct brands, right? It's like they could have put contender series and like open a fighter on something. They could have divided their fight night events and their peer review events.

They could have even split up so their fight night events, right? Because we have apex events and we have road shows. Like, you know, they had UFC on ABC events when they were in their previous broadcast deal. So yes, I'm definitely surprised they didn't go that route. But if one person just offer you this lump sum for all this content, it's really good for you. And Mike, we're crossing our fingers. It sounds like it's from everything we're heard from today's announcement. It sounds as good for the fans, right?

I think. Yeah. I mean, look, A.K., no pay-per-view. And I obviously have questions about this because if you're a fan, you're loving this, right? I think right now, as I look at it, I do have Paramount Plus. It's like one of those things. I see those commercials for the apps that it's like, hey, if you download this app, you can see like all the streaming services you have, even the ones you forgot about.

And I think Paramount Plus is like one of the streaming services I have that I completely forgot. about but I believe it's like $9.99 a month with ads and it's $12.99 without. And I assume the prices are going to go up here. Like more so maybe the $12.99 one, I would assume because I know with the $12.99 one if you want to watch like golf on CBS, like the Sunday final round, like you have to have the premium service in order to do that. But even so, whatever, it goes up to $599 or $19.99 a month or even like $24.99 a month. Who cares? Because it's still so much better. than paying at minimum $100 a month, sometimes almost $200 a month for UFC content, because if you have two pay-per-reveet, like October is after taxes, $85-85 plus the monthly,

I mean, that's almost $200 to watch the UFC in October. So this is a huge win for the fans, no doubt about it. How do you think the fighters are feeling about this? And how do you feel, how do you think maybe like Drickus Duplicea's feeling about this? because he's about to headline UFC 319. It's going to be a huge event. I think this is going to do great on ESPN Plus pay-per-view buy-wise because of the names attached. And if DDP beats Hamzat or vice versa, his next fight is going to be gigantic, no matter who the opponent is.

And now there's no pay-per-view points to be had. And I'm not saying that the UFC, on average, is selling 500,000 pay-per-views. I don't think probably any of the pay-per-views they did this year, maybe outside. of UFC 317 did 500,000 or yeah, the Elliott Tuporia headlight, the international fight week card probably did close to that, maybe 314 because that card was stacked, but none of the other ones even came close to that. But still, 250,000 pay-very buys getting points on top of each buy. Like, that could turn out to a nice big fat paycheck.

So once you become champion and you start defending your belt, that's when you start making money. Pay-per-view points are just a big piece of that formula. how are the fighters feeling about this? How are the current champions feeling about not no longer having the pay-per-view model? Mike, I thought we were focusing on the positive. We were all getting along so well.

I thought we were all just trumpeting this magical new deal. The answer could be positive. It could be. Like this could be a positive thing. Like the WWE wrestlers like when they would wrestle at WrestleMania, they got payouts based on attendance and pay-per-view buys. So they're making like big huge checks. That's why everybody wanted to be on WrestleMania.

And now, like, everybody is on WrestleMania, but it's part of the Peacock deal. So I'm sure the payouts are handled differently, but you didn't hear, like, a ton of wrestlers, like, openly complain about it. So how do you think they're feeling right now? Are there agents on the phone with UFC brass right now? Man, it's tough. Because I, you know, we don't know exactly what these UFC contracts look like. And I would hope there was some sort of contingency in there for a situation like this, especially anyone who signed a contract in the past two years, right?

because people knew the broadcasting deal was coming up. And I don't know what that contingency could be. I highly doubt the UFC would ever allow for something like, well, we sign this. If we're going to sign this billion dollar per year deal, your fighter will get such and such and such pay bump. But there has to be something. Honestly, if you're a manager or a fighter again

and you sign something with the UFC in the recent years, I hope you had the foresight to know that they were going to sign a new massive deal once they were done with ESPN. So that's really the only hope for them. The paper viewpoints thing was already kind of like, once we moved to ESPN Plus and long ago stopped sort of getting the results, like getting reported results of how many pay-per-view buys the shows were doing, it was already becoming a risky proposition because I guarantee you,

if we don't know, if we in the media don't know what those numbers are, a lot of the managers and fighters were probably left in the dark too. UFC and ESPN, whoever's involved, kind of the bean counters up there, are not in any rush to say, oh, let's make sure all of our, Everyone gets all the information they need regarding these. No, they have no inklet. They have no reason to do that. So already you guys know, we don't know what the average pay review numbers were for the past year.

Like Mike said, it's probably dwindled, right? It's probably dropped down a bit. Probably 500, 600,000 is probably the new upper tier. You know, there was a time when they had like a McGregor and a John Jones and guys like that and who could do like, you know, a million, oh, four million, a close to a million and a half. We're probably far from that. But hopefully guys are getting something. Now, we don't know. Now, again, a thing that was all over.

already not guaranteed for the fighters is completely up in the air. So that's a very scary thing. Yeah, you have to feel for guys like DDP, Iliotoporia, guys who are really starting to come up as draws and guys who, you know, should be entitled to significantly more money than your average athlete. I don't know, but they deserve a big chunk of this pie because they are all the fighters do because this $7.7 billion deal doesn't happen

without them. So, you know, listen, I see a few comments on social media, of course, asking these questions, but I feel like we've been asked these questions for a long time. I don't know if it's going to make any sort of dent in the decision making. But I find, yes, if I'm some of these especially bigger name fighters, you guys got to get on the line and talk to somebody. Also, you guys have a platform this week. I don't know if I expect DDP to competent it publicly, but we got Media Day.

We got a public press conference. I would love to see someone rock the boat. You know what? They may want to keep, I think King Green's on the prelims, right? because honestly, if he's on the main card, you might want to keep him off a live mic this week. You might want to keep King Green away from Mike. Yes.

Who knows? Maybe Carl Sjago Faheda is feeling a certain way about this if he wins. So, yeah, we'll see, we'll see what happens with this. It's just, there's a couple of other things that kind of stood out about all this. One is that it's just such a full circle moment for not only the UFC, but the sport too, because CBS was like the only like real prime

time cable network that was like, you know, we'll take a chance on this mixed martial art stuff and this barbaric cage fighting thing with the lead XC and they were doing all these different things. And they were like the first to step up and air MMA on a major network on a major platform. And then when the UFC signed their like first actual TV deal, like you said, is with Spike TV, formerly the Nashville network, TNN. And that's where we got the ultimate fighter. We got some of the fight night cards and all this. And now we're back home. And it's kind of weird to think about it, a K, a full circle moment for the UFC

and the sport of MMA in terms of broadcast. If only Kimbo Slice could be here. I know. We say this all the time. Kimbo just missed out on such a strange, like people didn't realize how much his existence and career foreshadowed like the direction that combat sports would go. Like he would be the number one name

and influencer boxing right now, if that were worth it. He would have fought Jake Paul twice, but if Kimball Slice were still alive. And yes, and it would be such a strange moment because he was a huge part of that CBS deal. At one point, at one point, the most watch MMA event in the United States was, I think it was the Kimball Sliced James Thompson. It was one of those Kimball Slice fights. That's absurd to me.

And again, that number at the time was maybe like $5 million, which was huge, a huge number of this time. Now I don't know, now I don't know how to frame this. It's such a bizarre and oddly poetic thing because, you know, we joke about it being. Spike TV and being the national network. And obviously it's gone through so many permutations. It's like it's barely recognizable anymore. It's become this premium streaming service and all this.

But it is incredible. And why it's so important, like why we always tell you guys, and I'm not speaking to everyone here. I know a lot of our listeners and our viewers are like, you know, people have been watching for like 20 years, like really dedicated fans. But there's some newer fans who aren't aware of the history of these things. And like guys, it is important to go back and look at not just like ESPN. Look at the Fox era.

Look at, again, the spike era. Look at before that, look at the dark ages of when the UFC couldn't even get on pay-per-view, when UFC was going to releasing events on like VHS. It's an insane, insane, insane story. And we criticize the business a lot. We criticize Dana White, criticize the UFC. But to see how far this industry has come within 30 years is it is unprecedented. Everything moves faster now.

That's a fact. Like you can't compare it to say, oh, it took the. the NBA this many decades or took the NFL this many decades to reach this level. Everything moves faster now. I get it. But even taking that into consideration where the UFC was once upon a time in the dark ages to becoming a company now with a $7.7 billion broadcasting deal. A deal that like is probably, I've seen people refer to this as like maybe a lost leader,

Mike for Paramount Plus. Like this may be just to make Paramount Plus a much stronger brand. for one it is now the ufc is let's let me put this way the ufc is a much stronger brand than paramount plus like this is this is this is the ufc essentially lifting up paramount plus so while paramount plus may at the end not recoup the 7.7 billion dollar investment directly from their association with the ufc if this gets more subscriptions if this gets more eyeballs if this gets people talking about paramount plus the same way they talk about ESPN the same way they talk about netflix unlikely but you get what i'm saying if we're getting closer to that sphere then for

Paramount plus it's good. It, you know, hopefully pushes some of their other original programming. Maybe they bring some other live sports on. So in that sense, it makes sense. Mike, we talked a bit earlier about the subscription, you know, $9.99 with ads, $12.99 with less ads, fewer ads. Do you think that they'll increase the $12.9 or they'll add more tiers? No, no, but do you think they'll add more tiers? instead. Like a sports, like, they'll have 1299, like, as they have it now. And they say, ah, but now we have this additional sports programming. That's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the 2499 tier, which obviously includes UFC. Is that a chance? Like, just give more options, or? It's, it's possible. I can assure you that the UFC deal, like being able to access UFC content

is not going to cost you 1299. So whether they just, they just increase that deal or they add like the super duper plus. The ultimate package. Oh, there it is. There's the air it is. The ultimate package for 30 bucks a month, which I think is, again, 30 bucks a month seems high. But compared to what you're paying now,

that's more than 50% less than what you're paying now to watch pay-per-views and all of that. So all the events on Paramount Plus, plus you get everything else. Tulsa King is probably the funniest show that has ever existed. So if you've never watched Tulsa King, it is tremendously funny. And then Bart Rescue's always great.

And if you want to watch John Taffer yell at some fools, like there's some decent programming on there. Sometimes you'll get to watch the Super Bowl on there, which is also worth the price. Like it's just, it's just a crazy thing, AK. And just think about this too. If you're a cable provider,

one of the things that sit out to me was start, let me pull this up. Starting in 226, Paramount will exclusively distribute UFC's full slate, 13 marquee numbered events, 30 fight nights via its direct-to-consumered platform. Paramount plus with select number of events to be simulcast on CBS Paramount's leading broadcast network.

Imagine watching UFC 330 on freaking CBS, AK. Like, that's wild. Again, it was crazy when it happened, whatever, 20 years ago, you know, with all the Kimbo, Gina Krono, Chris Cyborg. It was crazy back then. It was such a weird moment. And it's funny that we've come so far, but you're right, Mike, it's going to feel weird again. Like, in a different way.

Like, we are all used to seeing, you know, M.A. on television. Now you can flick on any channel and you know, you might catch some of me or or shows with MMA related plots. But yes, after all this to see it on CBS is what's what what else is on what does a CBS airs at the NFL as well in the US? What do you guys got? What's CBS? What else they got on there hockey?

No. I think guys want to talk in the US. They're big with like the NCAA tournament. Ah, yeah, of course. Of course. Yes, of course. Yeah. You know, they do some golf events.

I mean, they air sports. baby. And now UFC. Now the UFC. That is weird. When you lined it up like that, that sounds strange. But it's only going to be select events. I guess some people like it's not all, not all paper views are going to air on CBS, but let's just say hypothetically, they go to the White House.

You bet your sweet ass that that card is going to be on CBS. That is going to be on CBS. So like the massive ones will probably be on CBS. So. Yeah. They'll make you sure. I was trying, you're right, I was trying to compare it to like, because what does, what does, what do they use the UFC on ABC designation for now?

They've done it for like a couple of like Abu Dhabi events for like quote unquote UFC on ABCs. And I think you're right, it'll be different though. I don't think that's work that they're going to do with the CBS events. But we don't know. It'll be the same. Like, because you can watch, like with the ABC events, you can watch everything on ESPN Plus. Like all those events, like sure it's going to air on ABC, but it's all on ESPN plus. It'll be the same with this.

Like even the CBS ones, even the pay-per-reys. You can watch them on Paramount Plus or you can watch it on CBS. What's on ESPN Plus now? Shows 30 for 30s. Yeah. Occasional regional sports. They have no WWE stuff on there, right? No, no, no, no, no, no. But again, but the whole model is switching.

So like it's going to be a new streaming service. That's right. That's right. That's right. Welcome aboard Air Canada. Rockies vacation. Here we come. Whoa. Is this economy? free beer, wine, and snacks.

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perfectly priced. So which brings me my next question, AK, and this might be the most important question for you. Does this deal signify the end of the ultimate fighter? Or are we shopping this baby around? Because that's one thing that was missed

from this press release. Ultimate Fighter, Contender series, Fight Library. I'm shocked. Power Slap was not part of this deal. I'm not even saying that jokingly. I am stunned. that PowerSlapp is not part of this deal for $1.1 billion a year.

I thought knowing Dana White and how passionate he is about this silly sport, that he wasn't going to sign a deal, like an exclusive deal without PowerSlape being part of it. So I'm a little surprised there. But Power Slap is probably going to be sold as well. Tough contender series, which Dana will never get rid of Contender Series. Probably won't get rid of Tough either.

The Fight Library. Is ESPN still in play for those? like these are still going to happen, right? They're just going to sell them to another outlet, correct? Yeah, you guys, you guys have FightPass too, right? In the U.S. still. Yeah, I love Fight Pass. Okay, so you stuff.

That's all the regional shows. And do you guys have the Fight Library in there? Is it only on the ESPN Plus? Fight library is on there. That's where I watch all my fights is on. Yeah, it's funny because I'm looking at everything to the lens of like the Canadian viewership right now. And, you know, again, not much is going to change for us as far as we know,

which might be bad because I think, I think, to all my Canadian viewers out there, looks like we're going to be paying for pay-per-view still for the foreseeable future, but we'll see if they work out some other. Like you said, Mike, there's still, there's still dealings to be done. Today's press release vaguely kind of referred to they are still working on several international deals. I know, um, uh, Rodrigo del Campo, the great Rodrigo, he's, uh, he, he's, um, was talking about how it's going to affect, like Latin American broadcasting because they don't even have Paramount Plus, I think he said, like in Mexico, uh, Paramount Plus died there a long time ago. So I think they're in the same

same situation as us a little bit. I think they might be paying for some peer reviews. I'm speaking out of my butt here, but guys follow Rodriguez on Twitter as well. If you're in that region and wondering what's going to happen to your USC broadcasting rights, follow him. He's probably, he's probably digging for answers as we speak. But yeah, it's funny because, yeah, depending where you go, all this stuff, all this stuff is going to be different. Contender series and the ultimate fighter, like, I just think it makes sense if Paramount Plus is shelling out the 7.7 billion to make that part of the package. But you're right. It was not explicitly mentioned, nor was Power Slap, surprisingly.

I have to wonder if, I would be surprised if they still maintain some sort of relationship with ESPN. Not because it's like sour. I just think you kind of need a clean break branding wise. I think it's a little confusing for people if you have this huge deal of Paramount Plus, and then you're still, and then Pillar's to confuse like, wait, oh, this is still like Contender Series Paramount Plus and Ultimate Fighter and this stuff. So are there still going to be other shows? It's a bit of brand confusion there. they definitely when they were doing the negotiations like when people said ESPN looked to be out of the running and everyone assumed it was Netflix like UFC I think they never said like they're done with ESPN so it's certainly possible I don't think there's any ill will there it was a very fruitful seven eight year deal for both organizations right now what does make sense then for Contender Series or the Elder Fighter Mike do you think the ultimate fighter could end up on like some sort of of CBS because CBS has separate sports channels. Do they have CBS, CBS sports?

Or is it just CBS? Don't they have some sort of separate thing? Yeah. There's CBS, CBS, CBS Sports. That's right. Like Invict is on CBS Sports right now. I'm just saying, Ultimate Fighter on CBS Sports would be pretty great.

Contender Cs on CBS Sports, why not? But that would be part of the deal, right? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I don't know. Maybe it's not finalized yet. Maybe it's not finalized yet. Maybe it's not finalized yet. Or maybe, again, they just wanted to focus on,

guys, you guys, you guys can find the press releases out there everywhere. It's on M8Fining.com. It's everywhere. maybe they just want to focus strictly on letting people know about the events and about the PLEs and not again confuse all that other stuff Contender series starts tomorrow Yes

It would be like a good thing to You know maybe announce the future of the program right? Maybe they will on Contender Series Oh you want to know the future contender series You gotta watch Contender Series Come on Mike you don't give it away for free You don't give it away for free Doesn't be a lot I mean we've got that

The Ultra Fighter finale is also Tuesday night And then of the season finale I say and then the fights are on the UFC 319 card. So we're going to get a lot of information this week. I mean, there's a lot of chances for the UFC to speak to the media and kind of inform them. But it's just the beginning of a huge week for them. And just what a big win.

What a big win for the UFC as they are constantly doing. Whatever happens with the remaining programming they have left. It's all gravy from here, Mike. Yeah, man. Pretty wild. Pretty wild. We'll see what happens. Maybe it ends up on YouTube.

ESPN may want to stick around. Who knows? Like, they could still do some stuff with the SBN and have a desk there and make it part of the Sports Center library. Like, there's still plenty of stuff you can do with all this. So massive news. If you're just joining us and you have no idea what the hell is happening, the UFC has announced their new deal. The streaming rights deal, the TV deal. It is done.

43 events all on Paramount Plus. Plus there'll be some cards on CBS that will be simulcast there, just massive, huge news. No more pay-per-views. They're done. It's going to be all part of this one gigantic, ultimate package that we will figure out what the price is and how that's going to look sooner rather than later. So great for the fans.

We'll see how it affects the fighters and all of that. But I do want to go to the peeps and see what they have to say. We do have a couple of super chats. If you want to have your voice heard, make sure you check them in the super chats. It's 800 million comments going on right now. And going through them all is going to be a pain in the arse, as they say.

Dave, what are the chances TKO boxing goes to ESPN now? That was not part of the deal. It's not. It's not a boxing writers tweet this out being like, yeah, no shit. They would have mentioned the boxing deal as part of it if it was part of it. But it's not. They're going to try to shop that to somebody else. So I don't top rank is done, I believe, at ESPN.

So looking for a boxing entity. So perhaps this fills the gap for ESPN, maybe. I don't know. I'm curious. I think I saw Dan roughly. tweet earlier. He put out a number. I think it was Danerfield who said they originally passed. Yes, they had a deal with top rank. They didn't renew. And that was reportedly for 80 million a year. So they passed on a very established boxing brand at 80 million a year. I'm curious if they go with TKO, what kind of number TKO can't get out of them. But so far, again, apparently they are monsters to the negotiating table. So if they could get like a hundred million a year for TKO boxing, that would be truly crazy. But like I said, the numbers apparently said at 80. They didn't want, or maybe I should say the other way, maybe they need to go in for cheaper, but I sincerely doubt that.

I think they'll try to go for more. I really wonder where they're going to go with that, yeah, the TKO boxing. I wonder how ESPN feels today in general. Because like look at all the moves they made. They made some cuts. They ended some very popular programming. You see some of the investments they're making with the NFL Red Zone network. And, you know, they signed some very popular social media info.

to their team and they made a lot of changes. And it just seemed like now they're doing the WWE deal. It seemed like they were kind of moving some things around in order to stick with this UFC deal or to go try to maybe go all in on it. So I'm curious to how they're feeling about this. But again, you know, maybe they still get tough and maybe they get the boxing deal. So yeah, it's what a day. I know Damon Martin is like losing his mind like right now. He loves this stuff.

This is, this is jam. Spencer, maybe the best UFC news I've seen in my time as an MMA fan. I literally canceled that dog poop app ESBM Plus today and prayed to Zeus. You won't have to use it again. I mean, you probably shouldn't cancel it today.

Because there's still, there's still stuff to watch. Yeah, wait. Why would you? The news is start tomorrow. You're not watching UFC 319 on Paramount Plus. You still have to do the old, the, the usual way for the rest of the year.

the year. I mean, when you cancel, don't you still have access to the end of the month? I don't know how these things. Oh, that's a great point. But you're right, though. But even then, you're right, though. It's not starting in September. The- No, no, TFC for you, Spencer. Sorry. T. F. 20. 320. Tom Aspenel's back. Spencer, you got to, unless he's suggesting that he's canceling for now and then we'll watch, you know, through nefarious means for the next few months. But no one would do that, guys. I mean, guys in the comments, I know you're all reacting to

this with like, oh, well, this is going to change our, you know, our viewing habits because I never stream events. So, you know, we never suggest that. All right. Let's go through the brand. The billions and billions of comments. Yeah, there's a lot. People talking about Paramount Plus not being a terrific app to use. Oh, no. And people hated ESPN Plus. People, again, we never had deal with that in Canada. We don't have ESPN Plus up here. But I know you guys when you're watching previews would always be talking about like weird, the events like rewinding and just. like cutting out and that's not good that paramount membership going to be just as much of a pay as a no no way no way look guys look at look at what wb did when they sort of did a similar move long

time ago and uh sort of streaming and not doing like they they just relied on subscriptions and again uh other other revenue streams right that's the whole thing that's a big business buzzword right is what revenue seems can come up with paperview is just one of them so if you can find others and then cut out pay per view then you'll be fine so um it's not going to be cheap guys don't watching this stuff is never me cheap but it will not be they're not going to charge you 70 80 dollars for the subscription it just makes it it would totally kill the deal like they would lose so much money if they try to do that also a very interesting question from rob here what does this mean for ufc personalities like dc and cruz and the like now i don't actually

cruise i believe is uh kind of like an ESB employee because he does do like some breakdowns on their channels and such and dc does the show a chale So I wonder what that means for them. So that is an interesting thing that I didn't really think about. I'm sure they'll both be part of the broadcast teams when they head over to Paramount Plus. I'm sure there's no doubt about that. Well, what does this mean? What would you like to see from these fighters on this new network?

What do we say? Or maybe it doesn't mean anything to them. Maybe ESPN sticks around and does different kinds of stuff. Would I never want to hear DC and DC on commentary again? What a question. But no, speaking objectively, and I know they have their fans. And also, you know, you never want to see anyone get put out of work that way. Especially retired fighters, right, who've given us so much.

And I think they deserve their chance to have, to be able to still work in the industry and not just to get punched in the face anymore. I think when major network changes like this happened, there is, there can be like a transference of contracts. But it's definitely an individual thing. I don't think, like, I don't think UFC can, you know, an ESPN can just work out this thing. we're like, oh, all the guys we'd had with you, can they just come over? So you probably, I'm not going to, I'm not going to even try and pick out names like who's who, but like there probably will be voices that were at the ESPN desk and what have you that like won't be,

you just won't see them anymore or until they'll have to work out some other deal. I have a feeling DC will still be part of broadcast in a major way. I think he is one of the guys that they will try and figure things out with ESPN and say, hey, we want to, we want him to be part of the Paramount Plus family, M.A. family. What are we got to do, blah, blah, blah, work this. there's ways to make this happen, but it won't be everyone. It won't be everyone. So I guess it's a good news for some people.

If you're not a fan of a lot of the ESPN people, the fighters they've been using for ESPN analysis and all that stuff, you might not see some of those people anymore. But there are a lot of talented people that I hope they do bring over. So I am curious. But, yeah, Paramount and CBS, guys, they have their own broadcasters. You know, they have their own team. So maybe get used some new faces. I love this comment.

The South Park logo on the UFC canvas will be sent in a lot. we need that episode. Hey, I hope the boys run the truck already. I hope they saw the news day and say, yo, we got it to the episode. So it's been in the can for like three years.

They're just waiting for this deal to happen. And now we can, we can do that. So more on the broadcast side. Do you think this will have any change of broadcasters? Maybe Paramount will request better. I would say absolutely not. Maybe the desk will change.

Maybe they'll be like a new like a desk analyst. Maybe they'll bring in. Who knows? Maybe our guy, BC, we'll get some reps on some UF. shows since he works for CBS. Like that would be kind of cool. Yep.

To see that, it would be amazing to CBC do that. So perhaps that's what they end up doing. But as far as like the commentary and the production, like the UFC is not going to sign this deal without having full control of production. That has always been their MO. They will control how all these shows are produced. Paramount might get to like sit at the table and like have the ability to speak their minds.

but they will probably not have any say over how this is produced in any way. Mike, do you see this comment from Aries Vetter? I believe that's our boy, Toke, Ares Vetter. Oh, God. The best matchmaker in the world. Tuck, I hope you listen to this week's odd note. He's asking, how do UFC sell this as being good for the fighters, higher minimum contracts, other incentives?

They don't have to. You're insane. So sell what? So what is the U.S. Here's how the UFC sells their sales to fighters. Hey, we're the UFC. Sign this contract. Hey, we just gave you the chance to fight in front of more eyeballs.

There you go. That's what they've been doing. This is what they've been doing for the past 15 years. They have no, they have no incentive to, they don't have to sell anything. Fighters are constantly selling themselves to the UFC, right? That's how powerful the brand is. Yeah, they don't need to sell themselves at all. The three letters are the star.

Dana is the face of the company. that's it. Look at how data presents himself on social media. Like, look who he's hanging out with. Look who he's doing all his media with. Like, it's smart. It's smart. Imagine some fighter coming on and be like,

hey, I just saw this new deal. Listen, are you going to hire a minimum contract? I'm going to get this incentive to another. They're like, you know what you're doing? You're getting one-way ticket to Hexagon M-A to go fight Martin Boudai.

That's what you're getting. Octagon, I'm so sorry. I got confused with Hexagon just did that sick. They had the sick venue, which was so cool. So anyway, lots of great MMA happening. outside of the UFC guys, but not so much that any fighter needs any sort of extra incentive to join the UFC. They'll be, you used to be fine, I think.

Spencer, thank you. Boy, you think number of cards will go down in quality without UFC needing to sell pay-per-views. Also, this is the best option for growth of the sport. What if the time? I think if you just kind of look back over the last two years, the quality of pay-per-view has gone down tremendously. I mean, real bad. I like this card this Saturday.

We are, we more so on our shows, I.K., we have to defend these cards a lot more than we had to in the past. Like, people are dumping on 319. I actually like 319. 318 was okay. 317 was fine because you had a superstar up top. 314 was great. But the 314s, those cards are like kind of few and far between. But here's the reality of the situation, AK, and this is something we've talked about all the time. The UFC didn't, it didn't matter how many pay-per-views they sold.

This deal with the SPN was just like, hey, just give us the show. We'll put it on our network and we'll pay you a floppy trillion dollars every single event. So it didn't matter if they sold one pay-per-view or sold a million pay-per-views. They still got all of that money. And it was a good chunk of change. Like there was no net zero. There was no losing money for the UFC in any way, shape, or form because of this deal that they had.

So now it just takes the pressure, like the additional pressures that they would have with the paper remodel, like off the table. It does not matter anymore. So that's good for the UFC. And in terms of, in terms of like growth of the sport, AK, does this help? I mean, I think it does.

Giving it at a lesser price on a, on a network that is growing in popularity because of the silly programs that they have, which are great, by the way. I think anyone who's ever listened to me to talk about MMA knows I, I always hesitate to call to sport. I am one of the leaders of the MMA is not a sport sort of movement. You guys can boo you guys can boo me.

tomatoes at me it's fine um i just think the way it is organized at the highest level kind of undercuts its ability to be a sport okay and that doesn't mean it's not amazing i love m a may but i love m a may for what is i call it a game maybe a business for sure so i would like to look those questions as is this the best option for the growth of the business um definitely definitely i mean uh certainly you can ask the oc and and and everyone uh even other organizations i'm sure like they're not this does help overall like we said when you see these movements being made when you see these headlines being made. Yeah, it's good for business, good for exposures, good for everyone. Not necessarily great for the fighters, as we said in the bottom line,

because it just doesn't feel like a lot of them are going to make more money. So in that aspect, that is why I just don't want to say sport, because the sport is not just the UFC, right? If you're talking about, if you really want to treat MAA as a sport, the only way to grow it, not the only way. One way to grow it is that money has to go up for the athletes, and that is just not happening. And no sport can grow without better compensation and better incentives for athletes. It has never happened in history. Again, guys, look at the growth of NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, any sport. The money has to go up if you want the product to get better.

That's just how it works. It does not look like the money's going to go up. So I don't know if the product's getting better. And I don't know if you guys equate that to not growing. So it's kind of open to interpretation. But what's this one? What's this one, Mike? Alad, do you think censorship will increase for fighters since numbered events will be on national TV?

No. But just think, like, the cards are going to get on CBS are, not going to feature Sean Strickland. For now. For now. For now. That I can assure you. I don't think Fluffy Hernandez will be fighting on CBS anytime soon.

So they can control which events go where and all of that stuff. So no, I don't think the censorship will increase at all. Like if they're on CBS and a fighter drops an F-bomb, will the delayed trigger mute button be pushed? Certainly. But no one's going to like get in trouble for it. We have failed. So we have it on SportsSetup up here, like some of the free events, and they always miss the swear words.

Like they try and it's so bad. I think they've got to the point where certain people that go up and they just have it prepared. You just have like half the speech just muted just in case. But I remember when they first got on Sportsnet. Oh, I think the very first week they were like, I don't know if it was Aaron Pronset. It was joking.

Like yeah, sorry about the language on Sportsland. But yeah. So I know. I don't think it'll be a big deal for, like you said, Mike. Like Mike said, they will be diplomatic in how they employ some of their fighters now, as far as putting them on CBS proper. This is why Colbert got canceled, all politics. Yeah, I saw some people draw a connection between like, while Colbert is kind of critical of, you know, the current administration and the current government and, you know, Dana White is buddy buddy with President Trump and the current government and blah, blah. So I see some people attaching some strings there.

I don't think it's like crazy. but yes there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes guys i think you're right you're you're not crazy to have sort of um i won't even say conspiracy theories like yeah logical logical theories of why certain business moves are being made oh what do mike and a k think will main event the first paramount plus fight night did they save kela and amanda for paramount or cbs joseph boza that is such a good suggestion because you get to draw the de jina carano and uh Chris Cyborg parallels, right? You could even have Gina in the building, Mike.

Imagine they invite Gina Carano, front row seat to watch and, and interview, like, have a whole Gina Crono thing where they're interviewing her and like, oh, yes, I never, when I fought Chris, I never thought this would have, blah, blah, blah. I think getting Chris Cyborg involved would be a bit trick here. Again, there's that beef sort of the UFC with Dana White. No, Chris, I think would be there. Cut the check. Cut the check.

Oh, I don't even know. And, again, I know she's obviously she's working with PFL and I don't know if they would have to sign off on something like that for her to make an appearance in that way. But I like to say, I think Joseph was a really good suggestion. Again, because there's no reason to say for PIP review anymore. What does that even mean? So I would love to see that feature on CBS because there is that history of them have really, really helping to push women's MMA forward. So, yeah, that'd be cool.

I mean, that's where you do Tom Aspedal versus Derek Lewis, right there. Perfect. I mean, you could do that. I mean, you could. Kayla versus Amanda would be big, but I don't know if you want to use Kayla and Amanda, like, as the first of two title fights on the final pay-per-view

to, like, help set the scene for January? I don't know. I don't know. Do you do a title fight for the first fight night event? Is it at the apex? Is it not at the apex? Please, not. Please, can we tell please I put on the apex?

We're going to be at the apex a lot more, I think. Oh, God. But, I mean, if you look, Hunter Campbell's been saying there with this new renovation, they're planning to add like five to 10,000 more seats. So if that's the case, like I'm okay with this, being at the world's most famous apex.

But doing the world's most famous apex with seven people in the building, watching Fluffy Hernandez emasculate another top 10 middleweight was not fun for me. Like the performance was fun, but seeing nobody like react to it was just silly. Imagine being like a casual MMA fan and having not watched it in years.

And then you're like, oh, cool, it's on CBS. I'll check it out this week. And you see fighters fighting in an empty warehouse. You would be like, what's so brutal? You'd be like, what the hell happened? Like, was there, is COVID back? That's what the first thing was going to be? Is there COVID back and no one told me?

And they're hiding these fighters in a warehouse. Like, what is going on? So I got to hope that's not the case. We really don't need that to happen. Let's see if there's anything else that we haven't touched on here. What does Kevin leaf into this? I don't know. I'll, I'll, my cousin, I'll text them.

I don't know. $7.7 billion. dollars, Mike. A lot of money. And that's the number they said they were going to get. I think Dana White and the TKO guy said multiple times. That's what we're aiming at, a billion. And we never thought it was out of the realm of possibility.

Like we said, yeah, they're going to get at least a billion. But to see it is still like crazy. Even though we knew, even though we knew, this is like a number they would get. What fights won't be on CBS and Paramount? The apex cards? They will absolutely. They are part of the package. Yeah.

30 fight nights. Yeah. Forty three events. They got to go somewhere. They got to go somewhere. I guess the other thing I'm kind of surprised with, but maybe not is that we didn't decrease the number of events. That is like the,

oh, man. That is like the biggest gripe from a lot of the fan base is just like, it's way too much, man. Like it's just way too much. The roster's too big. There's not like UFC quality fighter. The definition of that has changed immensely over the years. And yeah.

So we're still doing 43 cards. So the pace, the strength of schedule will not go down at any way, shape, or form. So there you have it. No tough yet. No contender series yet. Maybe we'll get some answers tomorrow as you watch the shows, right? When's tough air tonight or tomorrow? Tuesday night at like 10 p.m. Eastern time.

So you get contender series into Ultimate Fighter tomorrow? Yes. Because of what? Wow. Eight to ten? Yeah. What a double whammy. What a double whammy of programming. Hey, Hulu, if you're out there, you could have both those programs for $150 million a year.

Sign up. And you know what? Maybe Power Slap 2. Maybe Power Slap too. Maybe Power Slap. Again, I truly am stunned that Power Slapp. Yeah, right? That would have the perfect time. Because again, you're all, oh, wow, I can't believe Power Slap got $1.1 billion a year. Like, oh, God. Okay. Okay. I think we're done. I think we've talked about everything we needed to talk about here. So thank you all very much. I appreciate you all. You guys are the best. As more news comes out from this, stick with us, M-Afighting.com.

It's a great website. It's a terrific place to be. Check out the new and improved site where you can jump on the feed. And you can literally go on the feed right now and write out essentially an article about how you feel about this and what this means for your life and what it could mean for the sport. Like you can literally put a thousand words on there if you'd like. So head to M-Afighting.com. Let your voices be heard. Appreciate all the great questions.

Appreciate all the super chats. And it's going to be a big week, everybody. UFC 319 going down this Saturday in Chicago. We get Drickusupusse v. Hamzaa Chimayev. We get the UFC debut of Aaron Pico and a whole bunch more. And yeah, just stick with us. What a time it is. What a start to the week.

And we'll see you guys later on for AKI and Mike Heck. Peace out, everybody. Godspeed. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Thank you.