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Do you like that Paramount bought the rights for the UFC?

Do you like that Paramount bought the rights for the UFC?


  • Total voters
    139
They're not stacking the majority of the numbered cards now for the most part, so whatever incentive they have now given how low the PPV sales have been in recent years.
True. At least with national primetime sports broadcast (aka what's going to be the numbered events) you're heavily incentivized to put on good events because the advertising slots and revenues are lucrative.

You don't see the NCAA and NFL putting shitting matchups on national broadcast because "sports is sports". They have a huge financial reason to put on good matchups that people will watch, this won't be any different
 
I wonder how this will affect the roster size or number of events

I don't watch most of them as it is
 
How many airlines does AA compete with? Hundreds, if not thousands.
How many motors does Yamaha compete with? Thousands, if not tens of thousands.
How many hotels does Wyndham compete with? Many thousands and tens of thousands worldwide.
How many MMA promotions does the UFC compete with? Zero.

It's a correct evaluation for a market monopoly which isn't one in name only IMO

That would make sense if there weren't plenty of other competing industries who have high value. $8 billion sounds like an overpayment to basically get in the live sports business since Amazon and Fox have NFL, ESPN/ABC have College Football and NBC is getting NBA back. I would have to look but my guess would be CBS/Paramount has the weakest sports line up year round. So this is a play to stay competitive but that doesn't necessarily make it a correct valuation. $8 billion dollars and most casuals can't name 3 recently active fighters.......SMH.
 
That would make sense if there weren't plenty of other competing industries who have high value. $8 billion sounds like an overpayment to basically get in the live sports business since Amazon and Fox have NFL, ESPN/ABC have College Football and NBC is getting NBA back. I would have to look but my guess would be CBS/Paramount has the weakest sports line up year round. So this is a play to stay competitive but that doesn't necessarily make it a correct valuation. $8 billion dollars and most casuals can't name 3 recently active fighters.......SMH.
You think they are going to take that money out in bullion tomorrow and personally hand it over to Dana? It's over 7 years.
If the casuals can name a single fighter on the card, they'll watch it, especially now that they are free they will definitely watch at least parts of the cards.
It will draw more eyes to Paramount+ without question, I guess we'll have to wait 7 years to see if the revenue they get back from it was worth it.
 
Anything has to be better than ESPN, surely 🐈
 
Everything in one place, its not on ESPN+, no more PPV. Events will also air on CBS.

I mean honestly what is not to like?


Its an A deal all around for everyone, the only thing that probably jumps it to A+ is if it were Netflix just cause Netflix is the biggest platform but this is fine by me.

I have Paramount, its only like 12 bucks without Ads a month.
 
That still doesn't explain why the UFC is worth $8 billion when their most marketable stars are retired or have not fought in years. I know it's not apples to apples but based on these valuations UFC is more valuable than companies like American Airlines, Yamaha Motors and Wyndham Hotels. All of these are also worldwide. It's good for the company and props to them and maybe even the consumer but I tend to think $8 billion is a very aggressive overpay for a company whose best years were arguably in the mid 2010's. I would think the only reason for that amount is because they have a monopoly on the high level MMA space.

UFCs best years are always in the future. Thats how you sell it in these companies. They say stuff like We project growth in this, revenue will be up year over year if we do this blah blah. Its a bit of a game but if you play it right, your valuation keeps skyrocketing. You of course have to hit those check points they set for you but if your business is strong its easy. UFC has been hitting those check points for a while, aside from the ppv numbers recently sinking. UFC is valuable brand, in so many aspects. The monopoly talk is irrelevant at this point. UFC can always counter with PFL has major backing (saudis recently gave them 100 million) and they're on ESPN.

As for why UFC got 7.7 billion, they carefully selected when their rights would be up. No other sports rights were available and streamers all want live sports. So UFC got paramount to pay up to outbid ESPN/Netlfix. Sports rights are in high demand.
 
I love the idea that PPV is dead.

It does make me hope all cards don't become basically equally shit, though, but I don't really see what incentive the UFC have to differentiate between numbered cards and Fight Nights?

It's an interesting one for the international shows particularly, but I suppose they'll just roll out a "you get what you pay for" structure? If Saudi or the UAE want to pay a shitload of money, they'll bring the big guns, but Azerbaijan or whatever wants to pay the minimum tariff, they'll get what we now call a Fight Night card.
 
Im in the minority, but i enjoy watching ufc at bars. I wonder how that will work now cuz every bar could potentially host it.
 
Anything is better than the PPV model which was $80 for the PPV and on top of that 10.99 sub to ESPN+ , it was criminally expensive.
@Luthien

Remember when Scott sold his cat coin?

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I don't believe PPV will be going away. They're just gonna call it something different and repackage it.

Gonna be ponying up extra money for Paramount Plus subscription......and then the PPV cost on top of that. Shit's fucked and will forever be fucked thanks to the ESPN model.
 
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