UFC broadcast deal: Who has the best odds of landing combat sports giant?

UFC fans have one important question that needs to be answered: Where do I watch in 2026?

ESPN has been the UFC’s exclusive U.S. broadcast rights partner since 2018 and the deal has been fruitful for both parties, with the UFC’s near-weekly event schedule drawing subscribers to the media giant’s ESPN+ subscription service and Dana White and company making money hand over fist as the UFC empire continues to expand.

However, that partnership could be at an end with the contract set to expire at the end of 2025 and the two parties unable to come to an agreement by the end of their exclusive negotiating window which passed April 15. ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro sounded confident they’re still in the game, telling Sports Business Journal, “we remain interested in trying to figure something out with those guys.”

But is it more likely the UFC finds a more lucrative deal elsewhere?

MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin and Alexander K. Lee break down the top candidates to land what is sure to be a massive UFC broadcasting deal and what this means for the viewer experience going forward.

Netflix

Martin: This is by far the most popular choice when it comes to the next broadcast partner and it’s easy to see why. Netflix boasts over 300 million subscribers worldwide. In comparison, ESPN is available in about 70 million households in the U.S. and ESPN+ has just under 25 million subscribers. In other words, Netflix has a much, much bigger reach. Add to that, Netflix just signed a massive $5 billion, 10-year deal for WWE’s flagship show Monday Night Raw and the UFC and WWE share the same ownership.

One more bonus—Netflix has always avoided getting too deep into sports because the season-long format doesn’t work for them because subscribers could pay for the service for, say, six or seven months and then drop it once a season ends. That’s not the case with UFC, which holds events almost every weekend throughout the year. Throw in the possibility that Netflix pays even more to get the pay-per-view package with those events only available to subscribers like the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight and it really does seem like a match made in heaven.

Odds: +150

Lee: At this point, it would be surprising if it UFC made any other choice than to partner with Netflix, right? The onetime DVD delivery service (real ones know) has taken a ginormous leap into sports entertainment, teaming up with Paul and Tyson for one of the most watched fights of all time and becoming a tag team partner of the WWE during one of the professional wrestling organization’s boom periods.

Anecdotally speaking, I can tell you many of my friends who were lapsed wrestling fans have gotten back into semi-regular WWE watching simply because of the convenience of having it all in one convenient streaming basket. Having that option could do wonders for UFC viewership and if they manage to set this up on international Netflix platforms as well, Dana White will be one step closer to his plans of world domination.

ESPN

Martin: The UFC loves being on ESPN because while the old school model of cable TV is nearly dead, the Disney-owned network is still the gold standard when it comes to sports. ESPN gives the UFC legitimacy, but with record revenues, massive sold-out crowds and the brand itself becoming bigger than almost every sport out there besides maybe the big three (NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball), it’s not a necessary connection anymore.

Still, ESPN+ has effectively survived based solely on having the UFC since first launching. Now ESPN is planning to launch a new streaming service in the near future and with the UFC providing so much content, it’s tough to imagine just letting that go without fighting to keep at least part of the overall broadcast deal. That might be the bigger stakes for ESPN—the network may not be able to afford to keep all of the UFC content any longer, but if there’s still a piece of the pie available, like maybe just UFC Fight Night cards, that might be enough to keep them bidding.

Odds: +350

Lee: There’s no place like home.

True, it’s only been seven years since UFC and ESPN partnered up, but with the speed at which media moves to day, it feels like 70. Regardless of how one might feel about the need to feed the ESPN+ machine with an increasing amount of forgettable Fight Night cards, there’s a familiarity with the current product that’s hard to deny. Keep in mind, too, that the ESPN is still widely regarded as the No. 1 brand in sports reporting in the U.S., so having a positive relationship on that side of things has also been huge for UFC growth.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t break it” as the great Charles Oakley once said and it’s possible that mentality could lead to UFC sticking around on a new deal. But that money better be right.

Amazon Prime

Martin: Before inking a seven-year deal worth approximately $300 million per year with ESPN, the UFC was closing in on a partnership with Amazon Prime Video. While Amazon ended up working with ONE Championship and even striking a deal with Premier Boxing Champions, Jeff Bezos undoubtedly knows the UFC is the one that got away.

After shelling out $1 billion per year to broadcast the NFL’s Thursday night games and another $1.8 billion for a part of the NBA package, Amazon may not want to tack on another nine-figure sum to land the UFC; then again, they can afford it. The company earned over $637 billion in revenue in 2024 alone. Amazon stealing the UFC away from ESPN and potentially Netflix also keeps them as a serious threat to take over even more of the live sports market and Bezos loves winning those wars.

Odds: +500

Lee: Bezos definitely wants to make a splash especially with some of his streaming service’s prestige programs failing to register in the zeitgeist (hang in there Rings of Power!). Something about the UFC definitely feels off-brand when you’re talking Amazon Prime, but maybe that’s the kind of shakeup it needs to close the gap between itself and the other streaming services. Imagine watching an episode of The Boys and then hangin’ with the boooooyyyyyz. You know what, I’m talking myself into it.

Amazon: Delivering anything you need, including fistfights.

Warner Bros.

Martin: This one feels like a long shot but it’s impossible to ignore that Warner Bros. Discovery—parent company to HBO, TBS, TNT, MAX streaming, etc—just lost out on the NBA package, which ended a relationship dating back decades. The family of networks still has NCAA March Madness, Major League Baseball, and the NHL but getting at least part of the UFC package would serve them well, especially with no other major sports rights coming up again for the next few years.

There was a time when the UFC landing on HBO would have been huge news because the premium cable outlet once promoted some of the biggest boxing matches in history. But these days, HBO is much more about winning Emmy awards and getting millions upon milions of subscribers to watch The Last of Us and House of the Dragon rather than going after sports.

So while Warner Bros. Discovery has the platform, it’s tough to imagine the UFC jumping at this kind of deal unless the financial figures are too ridiculous to ignore.

Odds: +1500

Lee: Agree, this seems incredibly unlikely, but if it leads to UFC on TNT hosted by Ernie Johnson alongside Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith, with Bas Rutten replacing Shaq, I’m all for it.

Now that has Emmy written all over it.

The field

Martin: Since the UFC became a truly viable brand worth billions, the company has never re-upped with the same company twice. Spike TV realistically never had a shot to keep the UFC, and the organization jumped ship to move to FOX. From there, the UFC inked the deal with ESPN and over the past seven years, there have been plenty of new contenders vying for sports rights. We didn’t even mention Apple TV, another major player with deep, deep pockets, and there are other outlets like Paramount or maybe even FOX that could surprise everybody with a lucrative offer.

It just seems unlikely the UFC takes more money for events to end up on CBS Sports Network or possibly going back on FS1 again. That’s why the field doesn’t look great when it comes to the odds to land the UFC TV deal. Apple TV is probably the only real threat here because that company always has money to burn.

Odds: +2000

Lee: Something about UFC ending up on the same streaming platform as the Academy Award-winning film CODA just makes me chuckle for some reason.

Though perhaps not as funny as teaming up with Paramount, not only because that’s where Bellator MMA went to die a slow death, but because Paramount is the network formerly known as Spike TV! Talk about going home again.

Could we see UFC spreading the wealth and teaming up with multiple broadcast partners again? It seems unlikely in comparison to having your brand all in a one-stop shop for the consumer.