The UFC’s seven year, $7.7 billion deal with Paramount just started in January, but the move to a new broadcast home is going to pay off even more if a planned merger with Warner Bros. is approved.
Paramount Skydance led by CEO David Ellison reached an agreement days ago to purchase Warner Bros. and all of its assets, which includes HBO and the HBO Max streaming service, which boasts over 131 million subscribers. On Monday, Ellison announced plans to merge Paramount+ with HBO Max, which would result
in over 200 million subscribers based on the current totals for the two services.
Paramount+ currently has just over 79 billion subscribers.
“As we said, we do plan to put the two services together, which today gives us a little over 200 million direct to consumer subscribers,” David Ellison said during an investor call on Monday. “We think that really positions us to compete with the leaders in the space.
“At Paramount, by the middle of this year, we’ll have completed the consolidation of our three services under one unified stack, and you can see us taking a similar approach to this platform going forward. And we think the combined offering, and given the amount of content and what we can do from the tech side, really will put us in a position to be able to compete with the most scaled players in DTC.”
Obviously, Paramount has to clear regulatory issues for the merger with Warner Bros. to become official, but once that happens, the two streaming services are expected to combine into one.
While that gives the UFC more than double the reach for potential viewers, it also likely means a price change for customers subscribing to the service.
“That’s only good for us,” TKO Group Holdings president and chief operating officer Mark Shapiro said about the merger on Monday. “That’s where it starts for me. Our house just got bigger.”
After announcing terms of the deal to acquire the UFC’s broadcast rights, Paramount increased the price for Paramount+ but only by $1 for each existing plan (one with ads, one without ads). The basic package runs $8.99 per month with the premium plan at $13.99 per month.
HBO Max currently costs $10.99 per month with ads, $18.49 per month without ads and $22.99 per month for premium, which includes 4K streaming.
At this stage, it’s too early to anticipate what the new price for the combined Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming service could be but given the $79 billion debt taking on to purchase Warner Bros, the cost for subscribers is definitely going up.
