Dana White Talks UFC Broadcast Deal As ESPN Exclusive Window Closes

The exclusive negotiating window between the UFC and ESPN on a new broadcast deal closes on Tuesday, April 15. With that, UFC CEO Dana White expects the MMA promotion will open talks with “lots of different people,” and some of them might be interested in changing how fight fans consume the UFC product.

Speaking at the UFC 314 post-fight press conference on Saturday, White said of the soon-to-open negotiation period, “When the window opens, we’ll obviously start talking to lots of different people, and we’ll see what the options are out there. We’ve said this every time. There could be a time when we end up on several different networks like all other sports do.

“I like ESPN. I’ve said it many times, we had a bit of a rocky start, which is normal in any relationship, but we’re in a great place with ESPN. If we re-sign with them or do not, I have nothing but great things to say about my time at ESPN.”

The UFC signed its current deal with ESPN in 2018, striking a five-year $1.5 billion contract for domestic broadcast rights starting in 2019. Not long after inking that agreement, the parties extended the contract for two years and added pay-per-view broadcasts to the deal. Before signing with ESPN, FOX broadcast UFC events from 2012 through 2018.

In January, Bloomberg reported that the UFC was looking for a deal in the ballpark of $1 billion annually for its next broadcast contract.

At the time of that report, White said, “Our rights deal is going to be a big deal coming up here. Who knows? We could end up like the NBA and the NFL where we end up on multiple channels instead of just one. … It’s all moving and changing so quickly.”

Under the current agreement with ESPN, “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” has the rights to all UFC events. Currently, the network has different tiers of fight cards, for lack of a better term. UFC Fight Night events stream on ESPN+, while ESPN and ABC carry bigger events. The flagship, numbered cards, like Saturday’s UFC 314, appear on ESPN+ pay-per-view. In the future, the UFC could split those “tiers” among broadcast partners.

When asked what the future would look like, White was noncommittal about the number of fight cards and how the events would be broadcast under a new broadcast deal.

“I don’t know [what the new deal will entail]

,” White said. “It depends on what ESPN or wherever else we go is looking for. Most of the times when you do these deals, you’re catering to what the network needs. Plus, they’ll have other programming, other sports that they’re already committed to at certain times and seasons, and whatever it may be. It always changes. It doesn’t matter to me.”

When asked about the reported $1 billion per year price tag, White said, “Sounds good to me.”

One possibility is that the UFC could follow another TKO property, WWE, to Netflix. That deal was for a reported $5 million over 10 years.

With the possibility of the UFC moving to Netflix or another streaming site, the UFC could see its pay-per-view model go by the wayside.

“Usually we do what works for the network,” White said. “What do they wanna do? Do they wanna just put it on their air? Do they wanna do pay-per-view? I don’t know. Do they wanna put it behind a paywall? I don’t know anything else. Tuesday, the window opens and we start talking to other networks. And we’ll get more into that.”

We will have more on the next UFC broadcast deal as news and reports become available.