LFA officially has a new cable broadcast home in the U.S., and there’s more to come on where you can watch the promotion throughout 2026.
The promotion officially announced a new TV deal with Vice TV to host 25 of their events on the cable network on Friday nights, beginning at 9 p.m. ET. Prior to that, LFA streamed their shows for many years on UFC Fight Pass.
LFA CEO Ed Soares says the reason the promotion became a free agent had nothing to do with any kind of fallout with the UFC, it was just the right
thing to do for them business wise.
“Well the reason is, let me tell you something, our partnership with the UFC has been instrumental in the growth of our business,” Soares told MMA Fighting. The UFC, I have so much gratitude, and we’re so grateful for the platform that UFC has given us. It’s been a great ride. What’s happened is they wanted to change a little bit some of the things in their business model. The last deal we did with them ended at the end of 2025, and what happened was,one of the main things that was kind of a non-negotiable for us is that they — and I understand why — they wanted to own our content.
“And you know, I myself, yes, we’re a fight promotion. Yes, we’re the No. 1 developmental organization in the world, but I look at ourselves as a media company. And if we’re a media company and we don’t own our content, then we’re not really a media company. What we are is we’re producers and I wanted to own my own intellectual property and the way it was sitting is we were one of the only companies on Fight Pass that owned our own company. Now, I’m not upset with them with that, absolutely at all, because if I was in their position, I would be doing the same exact thing.
“So I respect their decision and I believe deep down inside they respect my decision that I did that. It can be scary because I almost feel like we’re detaching from the mothership. But I feel that we’ve done what we’ve done, and like I said, UFC has been an incredible partner to us, and we wouldn’t be where we are today without the UFC and UFC Fight Pass.So nothing’s going to change. Last week, I spoke with Hunter Campbell on the phone, and he congratulated me. He told me how he thought that this was a great partnership for us. Nothing’s going to change. I’ve been doing business with the UFC for over 20 years. I’ve always had a great relationship with them and, and, and like I said, no hard feelings. … No ill will whatsoever.”
The partnership officially kicks off with LFA 224 this Friday at The Mystic Lake Showroom in Prior Lake, Minn. The event is headlined by Matt Adams vs. Arslan Bilalov for the vacant LFA heavyweight title. LFA 225 is set for Jan. 23 in Brazil, with LFA 226 taking place the following week on Feb. 6 in Clarksville, Tenn.
As far as broadcast options for LFA, they are far from done, Soares says, with international viewership news to be announced over the coming weeks, and more. But as far as aligning with Vice TV, Soares believes this was the right call.
“I think it was a mutual sort of agreement, and they’ve been extremely fair, like, so we, we, they are our linear partner, right?,” Soares said. “We are still in the market to go and shop our digital partner in the U.S. So that’s still an opportunity. We haven’t announced that yet, but who knows what it could be? Anyone that’s behind a paywall that’s on a digital platform, it still enables us to do that. So this is just one of the… there’s almost like a three-pronged process.
“We’re on Vice and linear in the U.S. We’re still trying to secure our U.S. digital rights, and then we have our international expansion because that, as we know, there’s approximately 200 markets around the world that we can license content to. So Vice is just one of the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle. So we’re very motivated and excited to take this next journey and this next leap into building our brand into a bigger, better international brand.”
One of the big drawbacks with the Vice deal was that it took fans of the promotion from a digital service like UFC Fight Pass and transitioned it to a cable network.
While most fans are cutting the cord, Soares says there are certainly different options on the table to watch the product without using the old school cable television system, but also says that a streaming option is being discussed and will hopefully be finalized over the next couple of months.
“I’ve cut the cord, and I’m on DirecTV now,I just recently – over the past month and a half – signed up for DirecTV streaming platform, and they have Vice,” Soares said. “We’re going to have a digital platform. So whether it could be, who knows? It could be a DAZN, it could be ESPN+, it could be multiple different places that we do it. But we just haven’t finalized that deal yet.”
