There’s been a change to the broadcast schedule for the UFC’s Fort Lauderdale event.
The next UFC on ESPN show has been converted to an ESPN+ card.
It was announced on Saturday night (H/T MMAjunkie’s Mike Bohn) that the promotion’s April 27th event is now going to have the main card moved to ESPN+. The main event was initially Ronaldo Souza against Yoel Romero, but Romero’s illness led to Jack Hermansson stepping in on short notice to face the Brazilian grappler instead. Evidently Hermansson isn’t quite the name value expected to garner major attention on ESPN TV, so the switch has been made.
Interestingly enough, the way the show is constructed, you’ll have to now go through three different ESPN platforms to watch the whole card. Originally, ESPN+ was to broadcast the early prelims, followed by prelims and main card on ESPN. Now, ESPN 2 and ESPN+ will simulcast the early prelims, ESPN has the rest of the prelims, then you switch to ESPN+ for the main card. Make sense? I hope it does.
Here’s the bout order:
Main Card (ESPN+, 9 PM ET)
Ronaldo Souza vs. Jack Hermansson
Greg Hardy vs. Dmitrii Smoliakov
Alex Oliveira vs. Mike Perry
Glover Teixeira vs. Ion Cutelaba
John Lineker vs. Cory Sandhagen
Roosevelt Roberts vs. Thomas Gifford
Preliminary Card (ESPN, 7 PM ET)
Ben Saunders vs. Takashi Sato
Andrei Arlovski vs. Augusto Sakai
Carla Esparza vs. Virna Jandiroba
Gilbert Burns vs. TBA
Preliminary Card (ESPN 2/ESPN+, 5:30 PM ET)
Jim Miller vs. Jason Gonzalez
Jessica Penne vs. Jodie Esquibel
Court McGee vs. Dhiego Lima