MW Paramount stealing UFC deal from Disney shows that there's a new player in town

By Lukas I. Alpert

Paramount's new boss, David Ellison, agreed to pay double what Disney had been paying for UFC rights and to jettison the pay-per-view model

UFC matches will now be shown on Paramount's streaming platform and CBS, after years of appearing largely as pay-per-view events under a deal with ESPN.

One big question around the long-drawn-out merger of Paramount and Skydance was what its new CEO, David Ellison, would do once he was in charge.

In his first big move since the deal closed last week, Ellison has come out swinging, sealing a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal with TKO Group Holdings Inc. (TKO) for rights to broadcast UFC's mixed-martial-arts fights.

The agreement doubles the $550 million TKO was getting every year in its existing rights deal with Walt Disney Co.'s $(DIS)$ ESPN, which expires at the end of this year.

"Live sports continue to be a cornerstone of our broader strategy - driving engagement, subscriber growth, and long-term loyalty, and the addition of UFC's year-round must-watch events to our platforms is a major win," Ellison said in a statement.

The deal gives Paramount Skydance Corp. (PSKY) exclusive U.S. rights to air the full slate of UFC's 13 numbered events every year, plus 30 fight nights, on the media company's Paramount+ steaming platform. Some of those matches will also be broadcast on CBS, the companies said.

The agreement will jettison the UFC's longstanding pay-per-view arrangement with ESPN, where viewers had to pay extra to see fights.

Ellison said he also intends to bid on UFC's international rights when they come up.

Paramount Skydance's stock fell 0.2% in morning trading, to erase an earlier intraday gain of as much as 1%. It has tumbled 21% since it peaked at a 14-month high on July 30, as investors have been shying away from media companies in recent weeks.

Securing rights to the highly popular matches can be considered a coup for Ellison, as it secures for his streaming platform a year-round live-events ratings winner, an area he has said he intends to focus on. The hope is that the fights will help reduce "churn," or the continual loss of subscribers as they run out of programming they want to watch on a given streaming platform.

Ellison has twice been spotted at UFC events in recent months, including once with President Donald Trump in April.

The move signals Ellison's intention to reinvigorate Paramount, which struggled following its creation with the merger of Viacom and CBS in 2019. It also comes after a bruising and drawn-out deal for Ellison to take control from media executive Shari Redstone that had encountered difficulties with regulatory approval under pressure from the Trump administration.

To help secure the deal, Paramount agreed to settle a $20 billion lawsuit filed by Trump that alleged that CBS's flagship news program had deceptively edited an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris last year. Many legal experts considered the lawsuit baseless, and some critics have argued that the $16 million settlement amounted to a bribe.

Soon after the settlement was reached, Paramount announced that it was canceling the top-rated "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," whose host has been a vocal critic of the president. Paramount said the move was purely a financial decision, but many critics said it appeared to be politically driven.

Ellison has stated that he intends to move quickly to make Paramount more technologically focused and to further develop its streaming business as its linear television channels have faltered.

-Lukas I. Alpert

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August 11, 2025 10:16 ET (14:16 GMT)

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