Only days after it was revealed that Fox would be closing a deal with WWE for their Smackdown brand worth over $1 billion, it seems that they’ve lost out on the rights to UFC.
According to USA Today, ESPN and UFC agreed on a $150 million five-year deal, allowing ESPN to broadcast 30+ fights a year. A few weeks prior, ESPN reached a $150 million per year agreement to air 15 full-card events, exclusively on their ESPN platform beginning in January 2019.
ESPN’s latest deal with includes 10 full UFC cards along with the preliminary cards for more than a dozen UFC PPVs. In total, the two deals are said to be, combined, worth $1.5 billion.
With the MMA giant basically off the table for Fox at this point, and the WWE’s deal with NBC Universal not finalized, could Fox gain the rights to Monday Night Raw this year?
