Paramount, UFC and the biggest question for streaming sports fans
On Monday came a big one: David Ellison, the new owner of Paramount, came into the ring punching hard with a $7.7-billion deal for the streaming and TV rights to UFC matches. In the seven-year pact with UFC owner TKO Group Holdings, the Ellison-led Paramount will pay an average of $1.1 billion annually — about twice what Walt Disney Co. was paying to air the mixed martial arts league on ESPN.
It's a signal that Ellison is willing to spend big bucks on content that he and his fresh executive team think will make Paramount+ a more formidable competitor to Netflix, Amazon's Prime Video, HBO Max and others. Paramount+ will have the rights to stream 13 marquee 'numbered' UFC events and 30 fight nights, while certain numbered events will be simulcast on the company's broadcast network, CBS.
Now those sightings of the tech scion-turned Hollywood mogul speaking with President Trump at UFC fights make even more sense, as do Ellison and Paramount's recent peripheral dealings with superagent Ari Emanuel, TKO's executive chair. In a key part of the deal, UFC will move away from showcasing fights through its pay-per-view model, which should dramatically increase the reach of a sport with strong appeal among young men.
The deal is also the latest sign that the streaming wars are far from over, at least when it comes to sports broadcasts. Last week, the NFL inked a deal to take a 10% stake in ESPN as part of a complex arrangement that will give Bob Iger-led Disney control of the NFL cable properties, including the NFL Network and the linear RedZone channel. The ESPN stake is estimated to be worth more than $2 billion.
This highly anticipated blockbuster deal further aligns the financial interests of the most powerful TV sports brand with what is by far the nation's most popular sports league, which accounts for the vast majority of most-watched programs every year. The agreement is part of Iger and ESPN chair Jimmy Pitaro's strategy to bulk up the content offering available through the network's upcoming stand-alone streaming service, which will cost $30 a month when it launches later this month.
Separately, ESPN is staying in business with TKO, having agreed to pay $1.6 billion over five years to stream WWE events including WrestleMania, Royal Rumble and SummerSlam. Analysts say that should ease some of the pain of losing UFC to Ellison and Paramount. The WWE events are moving to ESPN's service from their current streaming home, NBCUniversal's Peacock. Disney's fees will be nearly twice those of NBCUniversal.
Disney will use the new ESPN service to make its wider streaming offering more attractive, bundling it with Disney+ and Hulu.
All this is happening amid a broader overhauling of the sports media landscape in the streaming age that has made life more confusing for fans as fewer people subscribe to all-in-one cable and satellite TV bundles.
NFL games, for example, run on a broad array of streaming services, including Paramount+, Prime Video (for Thursday night games), and, in the case of Christmas Day matchups, Netflix. The league, which has significant leverage, is widely expected to exercise its option to renegotiate media rights deals starting in 2029.
Apple is expected to win the rights to Formula One racing telecasts, adding to its sports portfolio that includes MLB games and Major League Soccer. The NBA last year got itself a big pay bump, securing media rights deals with NBCUniversal, Amazon and Disney worth $77 billion over 11 years.
As these shifts take place, the media industry is about to go through a major test: How many people are willing to pay for a lot of — but not all — the sports content they want to watch, and what will they be willing to fork over?
The entertainment and media companies say they are aiming these services at cord-cutters and cord-nevers, people who don't pay for a more-or-less traditional package of TV channels but still want to watch sports.
The question is whether such people actually exist.
Despite its branding power and its significant share of sports rights, ESPN's direct-to-consumer app will have limited appeal. Many analysts estimate that the offering will attract 2 million subscribers in the short term.
For most of the kind of dedicated sports fans who might be interested in streaming ESPN, a digital bundle such as YouTube TV ($83 a month) probably makes more sense than cobbling together individual brands.
Recognizing the limitations, the media companies are taking another stab at consolidating their sports streaming offerings at a discount. On Monday, Disney and Fox Corp. said they would offer a bundle of the ESPN streamer and the new Fox One — which includes live sports, news and entertainment — for $40 a month. On its own, Fox One will be priced at $20 a month.
A previous attempt at a more inclusive offering — a proposed joint venture called Venu Sports from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery — was abandoned after a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against the media giants in an antitrust lawsuit from FuboTV. The saga ended up with Disney making a deal to take a 70% stake in Fubo and merge it with its Hulu Live TV service.
But the question for all services and mini-bundles remains the same: Who are they really for?
Filmmaker Zach Cregger won the weekend with his acclaimed new horror movie 'Weapons,' which topped expectations with $43.5 million in ticket sales through Sunday in the U.S. and Canada.
Cregger's follow-up to his surprise hit 'Barbarian' is the latest win for Warner Bros., marking six successful openings in a row (after 'A Minecraft Movie,' 'Sinners,' 'Final Destination Bloodlines,' 'F1 the Movie' and 'Superman'). Not bad, considering the studio's leaders were rumored to be on the chopping block earlier this year.
Doing solid business was Disney's 'Freakier Friday,' a body-swap comedy sequel reuniting Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan more than 20 years after the first one, itself a remake of a 1976 movie. The new installment opened with $28.6 million domestically.
After this and 'The Naked Gun,' I'm certainly not going to declare that Hollywood big-screen comedies are back, but the genre is not completely lost either, as long as there's intellectual property attached.
Watch: Marc Maron has a new HBO stand-up special, 'Panicked.' As always, it's funny, acerbic, insightful and sometimes deep.
Listen: On Aug. 14, the estate of Woody Guthrie will release a collection of home recordings, including a version of 'This Land Is Your Land' and his take on 'Deportee.' Absolutely fascinating.
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