GLORY and ESPN have come to an agreement on a multi-year deal, the world’s leading kickboxing promotion announced Friday night (Feb. 26, 2016) during their GLORY 27 Superfight Series.
GLORY reached a deal with ESPN back in November of 2015, and has since broadcast GLORY 25, GLORY 26 and also tonight’s GLORY 27 fight card on ESPN platforms.
The multi-year agreement begins tonight with GLORY 27, which will air live on ESPN3 at 10 p.m. ET and replay on Sunday night (Feb. 28, 2016) at 9 p.m. ET and again on Monday, March 7, 2016 on ESPN Deportes at 9 pm. ET.
“Working with the team at ESPN has been an absolute pleasure,” said GLORY CEO Jon J. Franklin. “We’re two, after tonight three, events into this relationship and excited that GLORY is part of ESPN’s sports portfolio. There’s no better television home in the United States for the GLORY numbered series.”
“There was certainly a phase where they wanted to see how it looked, how the production went, how the delivery went,” Franklin told MMAmania.com. “They hadn’t had kickboxing on in a long time and they haven’t had MMA on ever.”
ESPN3 may have the live feed for the main GLORY cards right now, but Franklin said that will be changing in the future.
“The plan going forward is for the U.S. events to be live on ESPN2 and 3,” he said. “The future foreign events will be more like we are doing here live on ESPN3 live.
“This agreement allows us to continue serving this passionate fan base,” said Matthew Volk, Director, ESPN Programming and Acquisitions. “We look forward to continuing our relationship with GLORY to provide their content throughout the U.S.”