UFC Lands $7.7 Billion Deal with Paramount: A Game Changer

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00:00One of the biggest story of the week this week in combat sport was the UFC television

00:05deal and streaming deal with Paramount, $7.7 billion for seven years.

00:13Now, I wasn't around.

00:16I was watching the UFC and, like, UFC 1 and all those type of days.

00:21I'm from Montreal, and Montreal, like, had this stuff, like, when it was illegal.

00:26Like, the cops used to raid it.

00:28It was on, like, the native reservations and stuff, right?

00:31And Montreal has a big kickboxing history and boxing.

00:34Like, so, the UFC was on in bars in Montreal early, and there was a lot of combat, you

00:41know, the TKO with GSP in Montreal was a big company.

00:48Like, GSP was a champion.

00:50It didn't come back before.

00:51He went to the UFC, et cetera.

00:52So, it was always big, right?

00:54So, like, I've been watching the UFC forever, and watching, like, the growth and, like,

01:00the exponential, the revenues is just insane.

01:04Like, put it this way.

01:05It wasn't out long ago, guys, if you recall.

01:08And I remember it was Junior Dos Santos because I got lost on the way to the fight.

01:12It was Junior Dos Santos and Cain Velasquez in Anaheim.

01:16And we legit got lost, like, on the way to the arena in Anaheim, like, in Anaheim, and

01:23actually gave up.

01:24It ended up in, like, a sports biker bar.

01:27But that was the first ever night on Fox.

01:29And I wanted to make a big deal about it, so they had Junior Dos Santos and Cain Velasquez

01:32on.

01:33Think about how cool those days were.

01:36And Dos Santos beat him.

01:37I think he hit him in a temple or whatever.

01:39It was one of the rare fights that Cain lost.

01:40But my point is, it was, like, a massive deal at the time that they got $100 million

01:48a year from Fox.

01:50$100 million a year.

01:52And, like, it was like, wow, we got $100 million a year.

01:54And, wow, it's a lot of money.

01:56And the UFC is like, wow, like, what a big deal.

01:59And they're on Fox.

02:00And, you know, they're on broadcast TV now.

02:02And, like, they're getting $100 million a year.

02:04Now they're getting $1.1 billion a year.

02:06And, you know, I said, I don't think the UFC is as hot as it used to be, like,

02:13from a, you know, from a fan perspective.

02:17Like, sports bars aren't full once a month now for the pay-per-views.

02:21And we don't have that, oh, my God, this guy's fighting that guy now, right?

02:26It's not the same now.

02:28But from a monetary standpoint, they make more money than they've ever made before.

02:32And it continues to grow.

02:34And the UFC is more about the quantity than the quality.

02:39Not that the quality is bad.

02:40But it's more about we have this huge, massive catalog.

02:46And we have, you know, thousands of fighters under contract.

02:50And we're going to put on, you know, 50 shows a year or whatnot.

02:55And it's big-time content.

02:57And it's gambling content for people.

02:59I think it's good for fight fans because it'll be cheaper for fight fans.

03:04People that actually paid for everything were paying, like, you know, like about $1,300 a year.

03:11Now it's going to be, like, $200 or $300 a year.

03:13You know, whatever, like $1,299 a month or whatever pay amount is, depending on where you are, et cetera.

03:17But, like, you know, I saw them $12.97, $7.99, $12.99, whatever it is.

03:26It's the final package it's going to be.

03:28I think I saw Shapiro say $12.99.

03:32But it will be cheaper for people.

03:34I saw Brendan Schaub saying that it won't be good for fighters because they won't ever try to build any stars now because they don't really care.

03:40They've already got all the money, which is kind of true.

03:42I think a big part of this, too, is them dropping a pay-per-view model.

03:47You don't drop the pay-per-view model if you're making big money from it.

03:51And I think finally it's the one thing.

03:54Dana White and the UFC have been pretty much invincible.

03:58And they beat all competitors and they steamroll everybody.

04:02The one entity that they could not beat, the streaming sites.

04:10The streaming sites.

04:11Can't beat it.

04:13And they're like, it's whack-a-mole.

04:15There's so many of them out there.

04:17You know, that millions of people are watching the UFC and they know it and they're not getting paid for it.

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