The UFC currently has a lucrative $7.7 billion deal with Paramount, which had experts surprised at its “above market” deal. The massive seven-year contract still runs through 2032, but Dana White is already eying a bigger figure for the next one.
White, who also made outlandish proclamations about UFC now being in the top four sports leagues, claimed their media deal left NFL executives reeling.
“We did an 8 billion deal with Paramount. Right now, I don’t know this for a fact, but I know this for a fact.
The NFL are a bunch of animals, right? As soon as that deal was announced, all the powers that be at the NFL got in a room and said there was $8 billion out there that we didn’t get,” White claimed during an appearance at The Diary of a CEO podcast.
“Do you know why Paramount did a 7.7 (billion deal with the UFC)? Because they believe that we can impact their business,” White said. “Now, my job over the next five years is to make sure we do that because guess what I want? I want 10 billion after we get out of this deal.”
For what it’s worth, several business experts tried to answer White’s very question, surmising that Paramount deliberately overpaid the UFC, to allegedly grease the wheels on a separate $110 billion merger. Regardless, the UFC successfully secured a massive contract, and White and his bosses at TKO are now looking towards even bigger deals for good reason. After all, the UFC maintains full control over the market for mixed martial arts and can demand a premium for their content.
There’s also a lot of money being thrown around in the battle of streaming rights these days. The NBA has a $77 billion media rights deal, while the NFL is reportedly looking to opt out of their already massive $110 billion contract to get even more money.
The end product may suffer after the UFC killed the PPV model and are seemingly focused on event quotas instead of really selling big shows, but targeting $10 billion six years from now doesn’t sound as farfetched as his recent claims… provided that the streaming bubble doesn’t burst before then.
