FUEL TV is about to become the home of everything UFC come 2012.
During Wednesday’s UFC on FOX: Velasquez vs. Dos Santos pre-fight press conference, promotion president Dana White affirmed that having FUEL TV would be a must for all UFC fans.
The broadcast station, an extension of the FOX network, will feature up to 25% of its’ scheduled shows as UFC programming with well over 2,000 hours of material.
FUEL TV general Manager George Greenberg noted that “We’re gonna have over north of 2,000 hours. We’ll have at least 100 hours of live programming, and it sounds like Dana is gonna heap a lot more on. We get all the shoulder programming, whether it’s Primetime, Countdown, UFC Replay, Unleashed, Best of annual specials, Ultimate Insider, fighter profiles; we have access to the Pride library. To have 25-percent of our programming devoted to the UFC, we can now cherry pick the premier action sports stuff.”
The “100 hours of live programming” will see the migration of the UFC Prelims, currently streamed live on Facebook.com/UFC, to the television station. As well, UFC Fight Night events and broadcasts from overseas such as this past weekends UFC 138 event from England, will now be shown on FUEL TV.
FUEL TV is currently available in 32 million homes, about one-third of the current reach of Spike TV and FX which reaches about 100 million homes.
This announcement is all part of the Ultimate Fighting Championships seven-year deal with FOX.