ESPN will carry UFC’s first event under its new contract with the promotion with an event January 19th at Brooklyn, New York’s Barclay’s Center. Sports Business Daily was the first to report the event on ESPN.
The UFC entered into a 5-year $1.5 billion-dollar deal for ESPN to carry its events which will include events on ESPN+, the network’s streaming service. There has yet to be a main event attached to this event in Brooklyn.
The UFC ends its network deal with Fox next month. The network ends a deal that began in 2011 and paid around $120 million annually.
Payout Perspective:
The UFC event on ESPN guarantees to have some star power on it as it will want to make a great first impression being on the main ESPN channel. It will be interesting to see how different the production and presentation of the promotion will be on ESPN. We should expect some major announcements after UFC 230 regarding this event on ESPN.
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