The UFC’s current multi-year deal with ESPN is approaching its end, and the UFC boss sat down to chat with the Full Send Podcast, and revealed that change is on the horizon.
“The world’s going to change a lot in the next year with our rights deals,” he explained.
“Depending on where we end up, but more than likely, we’re going to end up with a platform that is way more global than we are now.”
That suggests that the UFC could be set to switch one of the big US sports networks for an international streaming partner.
The favourite is likely to be Netflix, who are starting to make a big play in the sports space. They’ve already snapped up the US rights to the FIFA Women’s World Cups in 2027 and 2031, and has enjoyed streaming success with boxing through Jake Paul’s fight with Mike Tyson and the recent all-women’s card at Madison Square Garden headlined by Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano 3.
Netflix have also already partnered with the UFC’s parent company, TKO, to become the home of WWE programming, including Raw, Smackdown, NXT and all PLEs (premium live events, formerly pay-per-views).
Having seen the global success of both the boxing events and WWE on Netflix, the UFC could see a move to the platform as the natural next step to help take the sport to the next level internationally.
White has previously spoken about potentially splitting up the rights to put UFC on multiple platforms, so there is potential for UFC Fight Nights to sit on a more traditional linear platform in the US to maintain the news narrative, while all of the major shows stream internationally on Netflix. The international rights, like WWE, could all reside with Netflix, while the US rights could be split up to maximise coverage.
Other streaming options could include Amazon Prime Video – who have partnered with NFL globally, and the Premier League in the UK to stream major games on their platform – and Apple TV, who have dipped their toe in the sports right waters by partnering with the MLS, but generally isn’t seen as as big a player as the likes of Netflix and Amazon.
