The blockbuster programming deal between UFC and ESPN, inked back in 2018 when FOX lowballed the promotion with its scant $200 million offer, is set to expire later this year. That means competing networks and digital streamers will soon have an opportunity to make a play for the world’s most valuable combat sports promotion.
Netflix is expected to be among those bidders.
“Not going to comment anything specifically like the UFC but WWE is off to a great start,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on a quarterly financial call (transcribed by MMA Fighting). “The first week we drew about five million views, which is about two times the audience that Monday Night Raw was getting in linear television. Pretty consistent with how we modeled it, how we’d hope to build the audience for the league. We also saw that the non-live viewings and the day after the live event, our viewing grew by 25 percent, mostly outside of the U.S. time zones.”
Rumors of a potential move to Netflix heated up after WWE scored a 10-year, $5 billion programming deal in early 2024. Prior to that, UFC merged with WWE under the TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (TKO) banner with TKO President Mark Shapiro serving as COO. Negotiations for UFC are expected to be handled by Shapiro, along with TKO CEO Ari Emanuel.
“So this is new viewing in the U.K. and Canada, Mexico, Australia, Brazil in particular are really big markets,” Sarandos continued. “So we’re really thrilled to see how that’s going so far. In the U.S., our viewing of Monday Night Raw was as big as the Monday Night Raw viewing has been in five years. So we’re super thrilled with how that’s going and how that’s coming out.”
ESPN retains an exclusive negotiating window that expires on April 15.