Paramount Lands Exclusive UFC Rights in $7.7B Streaming Deal – Ending Pay-Per-View

Paramount has struck a $7.7 billion deal to become the exclusive U.S. home of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) that will make all events available to subscribers without pay-per-view.

The seven-year agreement, averaging $1.1 billion annually and ramping up in later years, will see Paramount stream all 13 of UFC’s top-billed numbered fights and 30 Fight Nights from 2026 on Paramount+, with selected bouts airing on CBS.

Crucially, the deal scraps UFC’s long-standing pay-per-view model, making premium fights available at no extra cost to subscribers.

UFC’s CEO and president Dana White, a prominent Trump ally, took to X to break the news on Monday morning, calling the deal a “huge win”:

The UFC boasts 100 million U.S. fans with a 25 percent audience surge since 2019 and for Paramount, represents the capture of one the most lucrative properties in sports media.

The deal landed just weeks after President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) signed off on an $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance.

The controversial deal came on the heels of Paramount’s agreement to a multimillion-dollar settlement earlier this year in what most legal experts believed was a frivolous lawsuit filed by the president.

The lawsuit stemmed from a CBS 60 Minutes interview last year with former Vice President Kamala Harris, then the Democratic presidential nominee facing Trump.

Chief executive David Ellison took over last week after the merger with Skydance. He has pledged to restructure Paramount into three divisions, unify its streaming tech stack, and invest in AI-powered content tools, while cutting $2 billion in costs.

“The UFC really is a unicorn sports asset that is year-round, which is really critical to our overall sports strategy,” Ellison said, pitching the move as a way to fill a summer gap in Paramount’s sports calendar alongside the NFL, UEFA, the Masters and March Madness.