In less than two months, the UFC will be under the ESPN umbrella as part of a five-year, $1.5 billion deal, a substantial upgrade from the reported $120 million per year from FOX Sports, the UFC’s broadcast partners from 2011 through the end of this year.
Among the changes we will see in 2019 is an increase in the number of fight cards, as at least 42 are planned for next year (up from the 39 they ran in 2017, and the same number slated for 2018), as well as a majority of the Fight Night events broadcast on the ESPN+ streaming service instead of on television. Lastly, we’ve seen the UFC typically run 13 pay-per-views on an annual basis in recent times, but that number has been chopped down to 12.
From a financial perspective, one major win for the UFC is the new PPV revenue split they’ve negotiated.
From Sports Business Journal: (Article behind paywall)
“[UFC president Dana White] also has upped the UFC’s share of revenue from its pay-per-views, negotiating the portion taken by distributors from the industry standard of 50 percent down to closer to 30 percent. And when viewers stream the show directly from the UFC’s website or Fight Pass, he cuts out the distributors entirely.”
So instead of splitting, say, $50 million in pay-per-view revenue as $25 million for the UFC and $25 million for the PPV providers, the new split moving forward would be $35 million for the UFC and $15 million for the providers. And this doesn’t even factor in the money they keep for UFC.tv purchases.
Just this alone tells you that the UFC doesn’t have much incentive to substantially decrease its PPV offerings any time soon. Not only do they have a fixed license fee for content on ESPN and ESPN+, but now lower-selling PPV shows of the UFC 228 and 230 variety will see more revenue taken in than ever before, nevermind mega-cards like UFC 229.
...There’s no word on whether or not the fighters will financially benefit from this new development.