Dana White has big plans for UFC White House, but they don’t involve airing the bulk of the card on network television.
Starting in January, the UFC officially moves from ESPN to Paramount, with the majority
of events expected to air on the Paramount+ streaming service. Though the door is open for televised events on CBS, when the UFC heads to the White House in June, a Paramount+ subscription will be required to watch the historic fight card.
“It won’t be on CBS, it’ll be on Paramount+,” White told The Mac Life. “One hundred percent, that fight will be on Paramount+. Maybe we do some prelims on CBS, but that fight will be on Paramount+. … There will be fights on CBS, but we’re on Paramount+.”
The end of the traditional pay-per-view model will take some adjusting to for longtime UFC fans, but on paper the plan is beneficial to avid watchers as they will no longer be required to pay a hefty PPV price for each show. All UFC events airing on Paramount+ are included in the streaming package.
TKO Group Holdings President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro suggested there could be a 50/50 split between streaming events and events on CBS, but White disputes that.
“I don’t think any of us know yet,” White said. “Mark is speculating, but there will be fights on CBS.”
Another major point of speculation was raised by President Donald Trump, who recently said there could be “eight or nine” championship fights held at UFC White House. Again, White is not committing to anything yet especially when it comes to booking the lineup.
“I don’t know yet,” White said. “I honestly don’t know yet. What I’ve told the president is we will deliver a ridiculous card to the White House.”
White and his team are still primarily focused on logistics for the event, which promises to be more elaborate than anything the UFC has done before. The promotion rarely hosts events outside of traditional sporting venues, though it did venture into new territory in September 2024 when it held UFC 306 at Sphere in Las Vegas.
The high-tech entertainment arena provided plenty of challenges to White’s crew, though nothing compared to what they face with planning for an event at one of the most famous buildings on the planet with the President of the United States and numerous other officials in attendance.
“We were going over all the logistics and this is definitely a Sphere type event, but they were saying—and the president tells me every time he talks to me—they’ve never had more requests for anything that they’ve ever done than this fight,” White said. “The same for us. Everybody is asking how they can get in and how they can get—we’re still figuring out how we’re even going to—first of all, the South Lawn slopes like this. We have to build up the dirt. It’s like the Sphere, yet different.”
