UFC To leave BT Sport in the UK - moves to new IMG owned Channel

[Just Creed]

This is bullshit! I might cancel everything and stick to Fight Pass alone.

But they might change the UK fightpass options. As in no live prelims at all

 

[J0N0]

If I was a Brit I’d probably get that channel. The only soccer league I really follow is Serie A, so it’d be handy to be able to watch both that and UFC with good quality. La Liga would be a nice bonus too

Doesn’t matter though since I’m Merican tho

Why would you watch Serie A of all leagues, it died with the 90's bro? It's like saying the only mma league you watch is Pancrase.

 

[Mob69]

But they might change the UK fightpass options. As in no live prelims at all

It is becoming unreasonably expensive to consume live sports. The only people who benefit are footballers and agents making ridiculous sums of money and the likes of WME. Fuck it. I'll save the cash. Happy to watch weeks later on Fight Pass.

 

[Rea_ctor]

When is this supposedly going to end, that's me cancelling BT haha

Edit: actually read the article, I'm certainly not paying a subscription to a shit channel for one sport, this will also kill the UFC in this country unfortunately, dreadful decision.

 

[Londonjitsu]

Why would you watch Serie A of all leagues, it died with the 90's bro? It's like saying the only mma league you watch is Pancrase.

This made me lol because it's true

 

[Brit_Brawler]

its not ppv.

eleven sports will be two 24/7 sports channels.. initially online only, but eventually on tv (presumably by january)

they just say that they may sell some events on to sky/bt

So basically if you pay your £15 a month sub to Eleven you can watch the events.

If you dont have a sub with Eleven you will be able to watch some events (im guessing just numbered events) on either sky box office, bt box office, or itv box office for like £20 a pop..

But I don’t want to sit up all night watching it. I record them on bt sport ( I have TiVo) . If it’s online only people would have to stay up all night in the U.K. to watch.

Also bt sport comes free with the bigger tv package I signed up for ( solely for this reason).

 

[Hoop]

If I was a Brit I’d probably get that channel. The only soccer league I really follow is Serie A, so it’d be handy to be able to watch both that and UFC with good quality. La Liga would be a nice bonus too

Doesn’t matter though since I’m Merican tho

You do? You must be Italian-'Murican to watch that, imo, muck. Or you like shouting DEFEEEENCE when watching the games and 'Murican sports.

 

[Kaybee]

Why would you watch Serie A of all leagues, it died with the 90's bro? It's like saying the only mma league you watch is Pancrase.

I started following it when I studied in Italy for a semester; it just kinda stuck I guess.

I'll watch Premier League games too but I just can't ever get invested in the outcomes.

 

[dim_]

But I don’t want to sit up all night watching it. I record them on bt sport ( I have TiVo) . If it’s online only people would have to stay up all night in the U.K. to watch.

Also by sport comes free with the bigger tv package I signed up for ( solely for this reason).

i looked on their website for singapore with a vpn, and it seems there you can watch any programming on catchup afterwards.. not sure if it will be the same in the uk.

so im guessing you can just log on in the morning and watch it (if you can dodge the spoilers on teh homepage that is)

to be honest, by the morning you can just torrent.. avoid spoilers then


yeh.. a lot of people get bt sport free..

 

[treelo]

But I don’t want to sit up all night watching it. I record them on bt sport ( I have TiVo) . If it’s online only people would have to stay up all night in the U.K. to watch.

Also by sport comes free with the bigger tv package I signed up for ( solely for this reason).

I actyually sit up and watch them a lot of the time(when i dont fall asleep), i'm not sure i would even bother trying if it was not available on my current TV package, its heading back to North America this one, as it will lose a lot of viewers in a lot of regions if they go ahead with this.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

So far sky have lost half of the premier league matches to BT and Amazon, all european matches and now losing La Liga.. Add to that BT stole the rugby, Formula 1 viewing figures are dying - They wont have much left soon.. just The Carabou Cup and Darts..

Sky haven't lost even a quarter of their Prem matches, they won the 4 best packages and let the rest go to whoever, losing out on the Champions League to BT was initially a blow, because up until that point they had everything their own way, now they couldn't give a fuck about the Champions League, as it has far too many empty weeks.

 

[Brit_Brawler]

I actyually sit up and watch them a lot of the time(when i dont fall asleep), i'm not sure i would even bother trying if it was not available on my current TV package, its heading back to North America this one, as it will lose a lot of viewers in a lot of regions if they go ahead with this.

I don’t have the luxury of sitting up all night virtually every weekend. I’ve got 3 kids and two of them are little and wake up very early. I used to do it but the cards are mostly not worth it anymore when I can just wake up Sunday morning and watch them just a few hours later than they finish live. I ain’t got time for being tired and feeling shit all Sunday when there’s a card on virtually every week

 

[Brit_Brawler]

i looked on their website for singapore with a vpn, and it seems there you can watch any programming on catchup afterwards.. not sure if it will be the same in the uk.

so im guessing you can just log on in the morning and watch it (if you can dodge the spoilers on teh homepage that is)

to be honest, by the morning you can just torrent.. avoid spoilers then


yeh.. a lot of people get bt sport free..

If they have catch up that’s accessible instantly then it could be ok I suppose. We will have to wait and see

 

[Late Starter]

They've alreadtbought the rights to La Liga and Serie A (where Ronaldo has gone) I reckon they're coming after premier league football next. Sky Sports are going to be struggling soon.

The fact is that football fans in the UK were far better off back in the day when Sky Sports owned all the Premier League footie and split the Champions League with ITV. Some stupid government ruling on monopoly meant that Sky were prohibited from controlling all of Prem League football and about a third of them were sold to new companies. Now I think it's more than a third. This basically doubled the costs for consumers overnight (I thought abolishing monopolies was supposed to lower prices, not increase them?!). With Amazon and others now entering the marketplace, this will get more and more expensive.

I currently have Sky Sports and BT. But if UFC disappears from TV I might get rid of everything, even the basic Sky package, and save a load of money every month! Fuck it. This is getting ridiculous now.

Same here. How many platforms are we supposed to pay for? I can see why more and more people are choosing illegal streaming new.

 

[ErenJaeger_]

time to steam lads

 

[Late Starter]

Ok, angry rant from a UK consumer here.....

I signed up to BT Sports solely for the purpose of being able to watch UFC and occasional Premier League and Champions League football. The recent addition of Frank Warren's boxing cards made this a pretty worthwhile deal.

Without the UFC, BT loses its appeal though and I'll be calling BT tomorrow and notifying them of my intention to cancel - hopefully others will do this too as it might make them take notice.

What I certainly won't be doing is taking out yet another subscription to some fly-by-night channel to watch one sport at stupid o'clock in the morning (as others have said, I have zero interest in serie A or la liga).

Basically, what WME is doing here is killing the growth of what should be a booming UK market stone dead.

The only potential silver lining here might be the connection (albeit loose at the moment) between Eddie Hearn, Dazn and Bellator). Maybe, just maybe this could bring some sort of arrangement between the UK's most influential boxing promoter and the world's no.2 mma promotion. Perhaps we might even get live bellator on sky and more frequent and better mma cards in the UK.

Other than that slim slither of hope, this is terrible for the ufc and mma in the UK. Shame on you, WME!

 

[SOAzmayesh]

Pretty much the only reason it gets views in England at stupid o clock in the morning is cos its on BT sports and most people get BT sports free with their Internet or phone contracts...

LoL
Their figures gonna go even worse.

R.i.p

 

[LUDELOW]

because the channels havnt been launched yet numpty

that's a recipe for disaster

 

[Escabar]

So you pay an additional subscription for this Channel? If so this will kill all ufc appeal in UK, what brings ppl to bt sport is the premiership and champ league the ufc is extra nobody myself included who has followed the sport for near 15 years is gonna pay for an extra channel when already paying for bt and fightpass.

 

[SOAzmayesh]

Also, people talking about sky losing some Premier league rights... Do your research.

They gave up the rights to X amount of games but got first pic of which matches they televise.
Its worked out that they get ALL the best matches and pay less for them.
Very clever business.
Same with their formula one although that's becoming exclusive next year

Imagine changing a sport that is free in a country, is televised from 1am-5am and all its competitors are currently missing fight night cos of injury, drugs and missing championship weight to ppv.
Haha, almost as though WME think every country is as stupid as..... Nvm