John Ourand of The Sports Business Journal (subscription required) writes about the UFC and its unique strategy in its negotiation with ESPN in not asking for guarantees in marketing the promotion if it joined ESPN. Per Ourand, television networks request a minimum marketing guarantee in any rights deal they negotiation with a league or a […]
ESPN
Endeavor president praises UFC impact for ESPN
Endeavor’s president Mark Shapiro is happy that the UFC is doing so well on ESPN and was highlighted by Disney Chari Bob Iger during last week’s earnings call for the company. Shapiro also noted the success of last month’s UFC 246 which he remarked reached a high of 50,000 PPV buys in 1 minute. Per […]
UFC 247 Prelims draw 1.491 after basketball overrun
The UFC 247 Prelims on ESPN drew 1.491 million viewers after almost an hour overrun due to the overtime game between North Carolina and Duke. Notably, the college basketball game between the two rivals drew 2.674 million viewers on ESPN. Due to the overrun, the UFC 247 Prelims were aired on ESPN News which drew […]
UFC 246 draws 1M PPV buys, helps in building ESPN+ subscriber base
The UFC’s relationship with the Walt Disney Company-owned ESPN has been fruitful for both entities. According to Disney’s Fiscal First Quarter 2020 Financial Results, it was revealed that the return of Conor McGregor brought in “about a million pay-per-view purchases and a half a million new subscribers” per CEO Robert Iger. The PPV benchmark would […]
Top Rank Boxing Saturday draws 704,000 viewers on ESPN
Top Rank Boxing on ESPN Saturday night drew 704,000 viewers according to Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily. The UFC Prelims, which drew 1.7M viewers was the lead-in for the boxing telecast on ESPN. In addition, to the 704,000 viewers, it drew 332,000 in the A18-49 demo. The telecast featured Eleider Alvarez as he returned from almost […]