Press Release – The Ultimate Fighting Championship® announced today the debut of UFC Central, a news and analysis show that will air just in time for UFC® 129: ST-PIERRE vs. SHIELDS this Saturday, April 30. Available live and exclusively on UFC.TV, UFC Central will be hosted by Todd Harris, along with fight analysts Stephen Bonnar and Kenny Florian. Molly Qerim will join the show as the backstage reporter during the entire broadcast.
UFC Central, which begins at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, will feature pre-fight analysis and be available for free during the first hour on UFC.TV. Once the UFC 129 live broadcast begins at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT, UFC Central will only be available to fans that purchased the event for viewing on UFC.TV and will capture interviews with fighters on the fight card during the live broadcast as well as other analyst commentary.
UFC Central will be offered as a seventh video feed and fifth audio feed, leveraging UFC.TV’s multi-camera view and multi-audio feed experience. During the live event, fans will have the option inside of UFC.TV to select UFC Central as the main broadcast; or, drag and drop it into Picture-n-Picture or Quad View so that UFC Central can be watched and/or listened to alongside the broadcast of the main fight card.
Immediately following the live broadcast, UFC Central will be offered for free at UFC.TV with post-fight analysis, making it the ultimate destination for the most comprehensive UFC 129 news.
“We are really excited for the debut of UFC Central this Saturday during the biggest weekend in the history of the sport,” UFC President Dana White said. “The UFC.TV experience allows us to test many different types of programming options, such as UFC Central, with the end goal of making for a better fan experience. Nothing will get you closer to the full UFC event experience.”
UFC® 129: ST-PIERRE vs. SHIELDS, which is presented by TapouT®, will be available live on Pay-Per-View at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on UFC.tv for a suggested retail price of $44.99 US/$49.99 CAN for Standard Definition.
For more information, or current UFC fight news, visit UFC.com. All bouts live and subject to change.
About Ultimate Fighting Championship
Owned and operated by Zuffa, LLC, and headquartered in Las Vegas, Nev., UFC® produces over 12 UFC live Pay-Per-View events annually around the world. UFC programming is distributed in the United States on Viacom, Inc.’s Spike TV and on Comcast, Inc.’s VERSUS network. UFC content is distributed commercially through Joe Hand Promotions in the U.S. and Canadastar in Canada. Globally, UFC programming is broadcast in over 145 countries and territories, reaching 354 million homes worldwide, in 19 different languages.
UFC® also boasts a powerful presence online, with UFC.com attracting over six million unique visitors per month, while also possessing one of the most powerful social media followings in all of professional sports. To date, UFC has over five million fans on Facebook and nearly 250,000 followers on Twitter. In addition, UFC President Dana White is one of the most accessible and most followed executives in sports with nearly 1.4 million followers on Twitter. On January 22, 2011, UFC continued to set trends in social media, becoming the first major sports league to stream live, broadcast quality action on Facebook.
Ancillary businesses include the best-selling UFC “Undisputed” videogame franchise distributed by THQ, UFC Gym™, UFC Fight Club affinity program, UFC Fan Expo™ festivals, branded apparel, trading cards, articulated action figures and other media including best-selling DVDs and a bimonthly magazine.