Now that Fox has moved on from its relationship with the UFC, the mixed martial arts promotion has found a new home with its former network partner's rival. On Wednesday, May 23, it was announced that ESPN has landed a deal that will give it rights to air Ultimate Fighting Championship events for the next five years.
Earlier this month press reports revealed that an agreement was in the works for ESPN to pick UFC up after Fox went the route of dropping the Dana White assisted programming in order to put its focus into recovering NBC's newly released WWE "SmackDown Live" show. The latest reports confirm the news.
As part of the deal's terms, ESPN will pledge $1.5 billion in exchange for 30 UFC Fight Night events to be split up between the television and the network's streaming service. UFC is also promising ESPN that it will get to show preliminary bouts in lead up to as many as 12 pay-per-view events within the coming year.
"Every year for the last 18 years, we've done something to take the sport to another level, and we did it again with this deal," UFC president Dana White said of the move. "It's massive on so many different levels. We're on what everyone looks at as the world leader in sports."
Source: espn.com
