In some breaking news for the MMA community, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) will leave ESPN to join Paramount under a seven-year contract valued at $7.7 billion, set to begin in 2026.
The deal, announced Monday morning, grants CBS and the streaming service Paramount+ exclusive rights to air 13 of the main event or “numbered” UFC fight cards, and 30 of their “Fight Night” events annually, per AP News.
The agreement will also effectively end the UFC’s pay-per-view paywall model in the United States.
UFC’s move to the production company comes just weeks after Paramount announced its merger with “Skydance” Media, and is their first major jump into the world of live sports since the merger closed.
Under the new contract, all UFC programming will reportedly be available to Paramount+ subscribers at no extra cost, with select “marquee” events also broadcast on CBS.
“Paramount’s advantage lies in the expansive reach of our linear and streaming platforms,” David Ellison, chairman and CEO of Paramount, said in a statement to AP News. “Live sports continue to be a cornerstone of our broader strategy – driving engagement, subscriber growth, and long-term loyalty, and the addition of UFC’s year-round must-watch events to our platforms is a major win.”
The decision is expected to reshape the combat sports landscape, with ESPN responding by apparently shifting its focus to professional wrestling.
Starting in 2026, ESPN will become the exclusive home for WWE’s biggest shows broadcast in America, including WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and the Royal Rumble, under a separate five-year deal valued at $1.6 billion. Those events will stream on ESPN’s soon-to-launch independent streaming platform, with some other WWE shows airing on the network’s traditional cable channels.
TKO Group President Mark Shapiro explained, in an interview with CNBC, that WWE and ESPN have been building up their relationship over the past few years. TKO, which holds majority ownership of WWE, is led in part by Shapiro, who served as a senior executive at ESPN back in the early 2000s.
“In many ways, this is our destiny…If you want to expand the audience, our fan base, the fervor around WWE, and grow on a real significant national scale, you can’t do that as it relates to the sports world without partnering with ESPN,” Shapiro said.
In January of 2024, WWE signed a 10-year, $5 billion agreement with Netflix to stream “Raw” on Monday nights starting this year, with the platform also broadcasting major WWE events internationally.