Paramount, UFC strike multi-billion dollar deal on streaming
The seven-year deal, beginning in 2026 and valued at more than $1 billion pear year, was announced by the newly formed media conglomerate this week, granting it exclusive rights to distribute UFC's full slate of 13 marquee numbered events and 30 Fight Nights via its direct-to-consumer streaming platform, Paramount+.
A select number of events will be be simulcast on CBS, the company said.
As part of the deal, UFC and Paramount will move away from UFC's existing pay-per-view model and access to UFC streams will come at no additional cost to U.S. subscribers of Paramount+, the company said.
The deal is an aggressive move further into live sports by the David Ellison-led Paramount, which last week closed a merger with fellow entertainment giant Skydance.
The Paramount, Skydance merger has been a source of controversy, given the company's promises to retool CBS News and scale back corporate diversity policies to win approval from President Trump's administration.
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Paramount stock was down slightly on Monday following news of the new streaming deal while TKO's stock was up more than 10 percent. White and Shapiro are confident that UFC fans will move en masse to the Paramount+ platform next year, showing the same loyalty to the brand as they did in 2012 when the UFC moved from Spike to Fox, and then again in 2019 with the move to ESPN. The incoming Paramount leadership is no doubt counting on the bump. As of July 31, the company reported 77.7 million subscribers for its Paramount+ streaming service, trailing major competitors including Netflix (300 million), Amazon Prive Video (200 million), Disney+ (150 million) and HBO Max (125 million). According to Nielsen, Paramount+ accounts for just two percent of all TV viewing on a monthly basis. In an effort to boost those figures, Ellison has already signed a $1.5 billion agreement to bring South Park to Paramount+, a deal that made the show's creators, Matt Parker and Trey Stone, billionaires. 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Why sports dominate the media industry & what's next in 2026
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And it's no different with these leagues that are creating this content and putting out there and striking really creative deals as well, um, to ensure that their property, their IP continues to be popular in perpetuity. That's a great way to think about it, right? They, that is their IP. If we look beyond sports, what's the next content category or experience that you think will create that sticky moment for consumers? Yeah, so it's interesting. 2026 should be a really big year for video games. We really believe that, um, you've got the e-sports Olympics in 2026, you have the, you know, a really prominent title expected to be released in 2026. And you know, video games just just helps the whole sector in general, right? They come up with original IP that is then marketed for, you know, TV and movies that you see being played out. 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Then the second chapter was really, let's take a step back, focus on ROI, focus on really making sure that we've got a profitable business. And now I think you're going to look at chapter three, which is what you're seeing happening right now, real time, some of the things that you mentioned, which is, okay, what are some creative partnerships, joint ventures, MNA, where there's going to be some level of consolidation in the in the ecosystem? Because we've done studies ourselves where the average consumer doesn't want to pay for 10 subscription services. They want three to five subscription services. And so, you know, this allows them to consolidate, you know, take advantage of economies of scale, and that's what I think we're going to see in the next year. But then going out from there, I think then it's all about what other things can you bring to your platform? 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