Because the UFC prepares to embark on probably the most important yr within the promotion’s historical past with a brand new broadcast rights deal on the horizon, Netflix has emerged as a well-liked potential vacation spot and associate.
At present, the UFC has a broadcast take care of ESPN that expires on the finish of 2025 with an unique negotiating window with the Disney owned community that runs by means of April 15. After that date, the UFC can start fielding provides from different potential suitors with many analysts and insiders pegging Netflix as maybe one of the best touchdown spot for the group.
On Tuesday, Netflix revealed that the streaming service added one other 19 million subscribers within the fourth quarter of 2024 with 302 million subscribers worldwide now. Add to that, Netflix only recently inked a $5 billion, 10 yr broadcast deal WWE’s flagship present Monday Evening Uncooked and it’s no secret that WWE and UFC are owned by the identical firm now at TKO Group Holdings.
Whereas Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos wouldn’t touch upon the corporate’s potential curiosity in acquiring the UFC’s broadcast rights, he had nothing however reward for the connection being constructed with WWE.
“Not going to remark something particularly just like the UFC however WWE is off to an important begin,” Sarandos stated on a quarterly monetary name with traders. “The primary week we drew about 5 million views, which is about two occasions the viewers that Monday Evening Uncooked was getting in linear tv. Fairly in keeping with how we modeled it, how we’d hope to construct the viewers for the league. We additionally noticed that the non-live viewings and the day after the dwell occasion, our viewing grew by 25 p.c, principally outdoors of the U.S. time zones.
“So that is new viewing within the U.Okay. and Canada, Mexico, Australia, Brazil particularly are actually massive markets. So we’re actually thrilled to see how that’s going up to now. Within the U.S., our viewing of Monday Evening Uncooked was as massive because the Monday Evening Uncooked viewing has been in 5 years. So we’re tremendous thrilled with how that’s going and the way that’s popping out.”
The UFC is in search of an enormous enhance within the new broadcast rights take care of stories surfacing that the corporate hopes for greater than $1 billion per yr for the entire package deal that features battle playing cards working yr spherical and not using a typical season lengthy format like most main sports activities leagues. TKO president Mark Shapiro has even stated prior to now that for the correct worth, the UFC would contemplate together with pay-per-view broadcasts as a part of a take care of these premium occasions airing for a broadcast associate with out the present $79.99 worth hooked up.
That’s an fascinating caveat contemplating Netflix did a deal to broadcast the current Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson battle with the occasion costing nothing further for subscribers. The battle drew over 100 million viewers at one level with Netflix boasting that it was “essentially the most streamed sporting occasion ever” when releasing financials for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Netflix additionally just lately acquired extra concerned with dwell sports activities after inking a take care of the NFL for a pair of video games that aired on Christmas, which Sarandos revealed pulled 30 and 31 million viewers respectively.
“We’re always attempting to broaden our programming,” Sarandos stated. “Dwell occasions is a kind of issues and sports activities is a part of these dwell occasions. After I have a look at this and say that’s a extremely implausible factor but it surely doesn’t actually change the underlying economics of full season, massive league sports activities being extraordinarily difficult.
“So if there was a path the place we might truly make the economics work for each us and the league, we’d definitely would discover. However proper now we consider that the dwell occasions enterprise is the place we actually wish to be and sports activities is an important a part of that however it’s a part of that growth.”
What makes the UFC such a horny addition to the lineup is that in contrast to even the NFL or NBA, there isn’t any offseason for MMA, which suggests there’s no lull in programming.
Sarandos particularly talked about the challenges to make financials work for a typical season run league and that will function a fair larger trace that working with a promotion just like the UFC makes extra sense than attempting to land one of many main sports activities reminiscent of soccer or basketball.
“To not be overly repetitive however we’re going to be aware of the underside line,” Sarandos stated. “It’s actually vital that these economics do work and that the massive league sports activities full season economics are very arduous to make work.
“So for us, we wish to have the ability to convey worth to the game like we’ve so far with WWE definitely however like we’ve with the NFL, too, the place we have been mainly capable of convey an enormous viewers, a younger viewers, a extra world viewers than linear tv however that needs to be mirrored within the deal as nicely.”
