At the start of 2026, the UFC officially moves from ESPN to Paramount and under the terms of the new seven year, $7.7 billion deal the promotion’s pay-per-view format is coming to a close.
Instead, all of the high profile UFC numbered events are just going to be part of the standard package available for subscribers through Paramount+ at no additional cost. While that’s obviously hugely beneficial for fans considering UFC pay-per-views currently run $79.99 per event, there are a number of fighters
on the roster who earn more money based on sales from those cards.
Typically UFC champions and superstar fighters such as Conor McGregor can make an even bigger payday from a percentage of pay-per-views once sales cross a certain threshold but that’s all going away under the terms of the new Paramount deal. But Larwrence Epstein, the UFC’s senior executive vice president and chief operating officer, says that conversations are already happening with the fighters who would typically receive those bonuses to restructure contracts to ensure they’re still being paid fairly once the pay-per-view model comes to an end in January.
“On the fighter pay question, there’s going to be some changes to the structure of our deals in particular with our premium athletes that have a percentage of their compensation based on pay-per-view sales,” Epstein said during the TKO Group Holdings quarterly financial call on Wednesday. “That being said, our team is already in the process of working out those deals.”
As of now, the UFC hasn’t actually announced any fights or events to kick off the new Paramount partnership but that could happen at any time.
UFC CEO Dana White has already stressed the importance of putting together a marquee event for the first show airing on Paramount, which likely means at least one or possibly more title fights at the top of the card.
Assuming at least a few of those fighters are currently in line to receive pay-per-view bonuses, the UFC obviously needs to lock those down before the event takes place.
As far as general fighter pay increases, Epstein reiterated a previous statement from White that athletes should expect to earn more when the Paramount deal starts in 2026 but there’s no exact percentages to reveal.
That said, Epstein noted that the increases aren’t going to dramatically change the UFC’s bottom line with the company expected to see a huge swing in revenues with the Paramount deal basically paying double what ESPN pays currently.
“As Dana White said, there’s going to be an increase in fighter pay,” Epstein said. “There’s no doubt about that. We feel like it’s going to be in line with what will be consistent with the margins that we’ve maintained over the last several years.”
