UFC pay-per-view (PPV) prices have been a growing concern for fans. The cost has steadily increased since 2019, making it increasingly expensive to watch premier UFC events.
UFC PPV fights can be purchased individually for around $80 with a subscription to ESPN +. The price went up by $10 in the past year. Fans have expressed their disappointment with the growing PPV prices even in the past.
The Role of ESPN and Disney
TKO Group Holdings president Mark Shapiro discussed some of the parent company’s concerns with ESPN’s pricing of UFC pay-per-view events during a quarterly financial call.
“ESPN and Disney were very aggressive, if you will, on pricing the pay-per-views and they have full control over that,” Shapiro said. “But they have control given what they’re paying us for those rights. Over the period of our partnership, they probably went a little quicker and a little higher than we would have liked.”
In other words, it wasn’t the UFC’s idea to increase the price of pay-per-views from $59.99 in 2018 to $79.99 today. And, according to Shapiro, the UFC’s parent company suspects that the rapid increase in cost to the consumer is why “piracy numbers really jacked up” for UFC pay-per-views recently.
Dana White had earlier washed his hands from the rising PPV prices. He had blamed it on ESPN and Disney.
The Impact of Piracy
The UFC’s war with online pirates has been a long and not terribly effective one. While UFC president Dana White has occasionally made bold and antagonistic claims about targeting illegal streaming sites, there’s little evidence that he was actually doing all the things he said he was.
Pirated streams still exist for every UFC event. When surveyed, many longtime fans of the sport will tell you that they never or very seldom pay for UFC pay-per-views. The UFC has been aggressive about getting fight videos removed from YouTube and social media sites, but if you’re looking around social media for clips of finishes or sometimes even whole fights just moments after they’ve ended, you can still find them very easily.
If you talk to anti-piracy experts, they’ll tell you that price is the No. 1 factor in online piracy.
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Fighter Pay and Event Quality
It will be interesting to hear how the decision is justified. Will fighter pay also be raised? For starters, increasing the performance bonuses for each pay-per-view would help balance this decision.
In order to quell the disappointment, the cards throughout the year will need to be stacked. That means returns from Jon Jones, Stipe Miocic, and Francis Ngannou. Ideally, that happens as soon as March, where Jones and Ngannou could finally headline a pay-per-view for the heavyweight title.
This price hike also means that the UFC will need a return from Conor McGregor. Without any chance of a trilogy bout pitting McGregor against eternal rival Khabib Nurmagomedov, does this open the door for a McGregor title shot against Islam Makhachev? Nurmagomedov would be in Makhachev’s corner, making the buildup to the bout even more compelling. Obviously McGregor has not earned a title shot. He just fell out of the lightweight rankings. But there is no denying this would be a massively anticipated fight.
There are plenty of intriguing fights for the New Year, including trilogy bouts between Amanda Nunes and Julianna Pena as well as Kamaru Usman-Leon Edwards, and a Khamzat Chimaev-Colby Covington fight that could somehow transform Covington into the good guy. But in order for this price increase to work, the UFC needs to create new stars.
Who is part of that next wave of stars? Sean O’Malley is on the cusp. Paddy Pimblett has the personality, but he was exposed in his last bout against Jason Gordon. You could make an argument for Sergei Pavlovich, and I would certainly listen, but this has to be the area of focus in 2023. And in a sport without scripted finishes, it becomes that much harder to catch lightning in a bottle.
Here’s where it gets tricky, though. The fighters who bring the starpower to make UFC pay-per-views special? They have to start somewhere. They have to gradually gain that fan following that eventually justifies charging premium prices to see them perform.
And if people tune out from the lower tiers of the UFC product, how will they find out who matters and why? How convoluted can you make the pipeline from novice to contender to champion before too much of your audience leaks out along the way?
This is the question the UFC and its parent company will have to answer in the upcoming round of broadcast rights negotiations.
Future of UFC Broadcast Rights
All of this seems especially relevant now that the UFC is nearing the end of its broadcast rights deal with ESPN. Companies like Netflix and Amazon have shown increased interest in streaming live sports. White has teased the possibility that the UFC might break up its product across multiple streaming platforms, similar to the NFL's model.
Depending on the cost and accessibility of those platforms, it might not be such a dramatic shift from the current model. Clearly, the UFC already offers several different tiers of its product.
At the top is the pay-per-views, where fans are asked to pay nearly $100 a month (when the ESPN+ subscription is factored in) for title fights and marquee attractions. Then there are the UFC Fight Night events, which tend to fall into two categories: decent and disposable.
Under the current deal, the UFC has no real incentive to offer anything better or more appealing to fans than that. It gets paid simply to put on these events, regardless of whether people watch them. It is pure content-production. Even the UFC president doesn’t bother to show up for all these events.
This is a problem, but maybe also an opportunity. If the UFC is going to offer multiple versions of its product, ranging widely in quality, it’s not hard to imagine a world where these iterations are spread out across multiple platforms.
Dana White's Response
As Dana White sent out a message about appearing on all social media platforms with an important announcement, a sarcastic comment from a fan came which said, “BREAKING NEWS PPV’s are now at $100 USD!!!”.
He got another comment, who played along and commented, “Finally! I’ve been telling myself for years these things have been too cheap”. The conversation drew Dana White‘s attention, too. The UFC president had a one-word reply to the ongoing discussion. He wrote a simple ‘LOL’.
A simple comment may not be enough to console fans. The PPV prices have always been a concern for Dana White.
Upcoming UFC Events
UFC has many PPV events coming up.
UFC has a contract with ESPN and has to create a certain number of PPV events. In the recent past, many a time, this clause has brought in accusations from fans for creating weak match-ups and cards that aren’t as exciting.
In the coming few months will have a lot of interesting cards. Islam Makhachev is set to face Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 284.
Jon Jones is also coming back to the UFC against French heavyweight Ciryl Gane. Fans are also excited to see Israel Adesanya take on Alex Pereira in a rematch that is scheduled for April 2023.
With all these exciting cards, fans would have loved it if the PPV prices were not as high as they are. Although it’s not possible to do anything about the prices, fans will still enjoy the power-packed fights.
Ultimately, fight fans suffer due to the increase in price. We’ll watch to see how they are repaid for their hard-earned cash.
| Year | Price |
|---|---|
| 2018 | $59.99 |
| Today | $79.99 |