Well, free if you have ESPN and/or ESPN+.
North American UFC fans are used to getting hosed when it comes to pay-per-view prices. Nowadays you gotta pay for ESPN+ for the honor of paying for $70 UFC pay-per-views while other countries get events for way less if not free. Of course if you want to watch the UFC in Europe you have to stay up til 5AM to do it, so there are plusses and minuses for everyone.
But in the case of UFC 267 on October 30th, we finally get a taste of what it’s like to get a free pay-per-view because of an unusual time scheduling.
The event, headlined by Jan Blachowicz vs. Glover Teixeira for the 205 pound strap and Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan 2 for the bantamweight belt, will be held in Abu Dhabi on Fight Island. And in order to offer the event up at primetime for the Middle East and Europe, the card will start at 11am. So rather than struggle to draw decent numbers, former ESPN reporter Ariel Helwani is reporting the UFC is going to give us this one to ESPN / ESPN+ subscribers for free.
This would mark the first numbered non-PPV since UFC 138 aired on Spike via tape delay from Birmingham, England. 267 won’t be tape delayed, of course. 268 would be a week or two later, hopefully from Madison Square Garden. That would be a PPV.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) July 24, 2021
This is great news and a nice present for UFC fans, who deserve a lot of credit when it comes to following the UFC to ESPN+ and paying for a subscription when the service first started. You can also see the UFC is thinking of it as an expensive commercial for UFC 268 in Madison Square Garden (COVID permitting). No word yet on what will headline that card, but you know the UFC likes to try and stack its NYC cards.