One week after a UFC 313 broadcast that left plenty of complaints and rants against ESPN and their ESPN+ platform, it appears the UFC’s relationship with the American broadcast sports network will be coming to an end.
According to a recent report from the New York Post, officials at TKO, created by the parent company of the UFC, Endeavor, are furious with the difficulties for UFC 313. They included everything from being unable to purchase the pay-per-view, to customers being double charged for the event, to streaming quality of the card.
Now, in a new video from the news publication, Jake Aryeh and Erich Richter on Against the Cage noted that while the UFC is still in the middle of an exclusive negotiating window with ESPN, the MMA promotion may be looking to get a deal with Netflix as soon as possible to ensure it begins following the expiration of the deal with ESPN at the end of the year.
The exclusive negotiating window ends on April 15, according to the Post.
Richter, in fact, says that he has heard from a “well-connected” source that Netflix will “definitely” be the new home for the UFC.
UFC Doing ‘Everything In Their Power’ For Netflix Deal After ESPN Exclusive Negotiating Window Expires
During the 40-minute video, Aryeh and Richter break down multiple issues between the UFC and ESPN. The UFC, who a week later is still very upset by the UFC 313 issues, has an issue with the quality of the technology used by ESPN for broadcasts. ESPN, meanwhile, is reportedly upset with the number of pay-per-view buys for what they pay to broadcast UFC.
The Post video added that PPV numbers are “way down” to the point where fighters are upset because PPV points in fighters’ contracts mean virtually nothing. The low number of buys can be attributed to various potential reasons from quality of cards to easier methods of pirating in the modern, digital age.
Aryeh and Richter also note a lack of recent cards that are not behind the ESPN+ subscription paywall, though that could be due to current other commitments of ESPN the last several months that included college football and basketball programming.
A deal with Netflix may be the easiest and most logical fit given the streaming platform’s recent attempts to get into live sports programming. The UFC’s partners in TKO, the WWE, have found quite the success with their deals with Netflix, which started at the beginning of this year. In fact, the Post notes that the UFC will do “everything in their power” to get a deal with Netflix.
The Post notes that one roadblock in a deal with Netflix is that Netflix is opposed to the pay-per-view model, which the UFC were able to retain in their deal with ESPN. Customers currently have to pay for an ESPN+ subscription before being able to purchase a UFC pay-per-view. Netflix, however, is reportedly flexible in this regard.
