When UFC announced its upcoming multi-year media deal last month, some were shocked that the promotion landed not with Netflix, ESPN or Prime Video, but with CBS/Paramount.
Many saw Netflix as a frontrunner to score a deal with the top MMA promoter for a variety of reasons.
The streamer has shown a growing interest in live programming over the years and has started to throw money at sporting events. They also have a history with TKO, currently being the international home for Monday Night Raw and the streamer that hosted the company’s first-ever boxing event last weekend, Canelo Alvarez vs. Terrence Crawford.
Those who suspected Netflix was interested in the UFC rights would be correct. As TKO President Mark Shapiro recently explained on Puck’s The Varsity Podcast, they were in close talks with the streamer at one point.
Netflix was interested in carrying big events from UFC, like numbered pay-per-view events, Shapiro said. But, they didn’t want to carry UFC’s full media deal, which includes over 40 events a year.
“There was one moment of disappointment,” Shapiro said on The Varsity. “We were getting pretty close with Netflix, frankly. They kind of stood by the fact that they didn’t want to have the volume, which we understood from the get-go. Ted [Sarandos] and Bela [Bajaria] were very upfront with that. ‘We’re looking for big events. So the fact that you could give us one pay-per-view’ which they were just going to put on the platform for free, as long as you’re a subscriber. ‘As long as you just give us that, we’re in and we’ll pay premium for it. But we don’t want to carry the other 30 Fight Nights.’ And over the course of the conversation, they really didn’t come off that. And that’s what opened the door for Paramount/CBS.”
The Varsity host John Ourand thought this answer was curious, since Netflix carries Raw, a show which airs every single week on Monday. If Netflix hated the volume, why did they agree to such a big deal like that?
“I think that played against us,” Shapiro said about the Raw deal. “I think they felt like, ‘We have volume there, therefore we don’t need it here.'”
Netflix has definitely focused on larger one-off events over long-term media rights deals. Take, for example, the company’s NFL Christmas Day games, or the one-off boxing events that they have broadcast before, like Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson.
“They wanted to stick with the big spectacles, which made a lot of sense,” Shapiro said. “But when CBS/Paramount came knocking on the door, saying, ‘We’ll play on all of it. We’ll promote cross-platform, we’ll use CBS, we want the volume, we’re going to grow and really push Paramount+ as our premium platform, get behind it with better tech and a better ad-tech solution’ … [It] was just too good to pass up.”
