The value of live sports has absolutely sky rocketed in the last decade because it's the only thing most people watch live. Commercials for anything else are borderline useless because we stream it or we record and fast forward. Live sports is pretty much the only way to have ad revenue.
The average NFL game, not a playoff or the Super Bowl, generates $22 million in ad revenue. The playoffs, thanksgiving day games, etc all generate more.
The big UFC events probably bring in more than $22 million and the smaller events might do half that? But that still projects to $4.5 billion and $7 billion. And that's in today's dollars. If this brings in more viewers, and as live events continue to increase in value, the deal becomes less crazy. Plus, each new subscriber is bringing in money for the access.
This x eleventy billion.
I mean, in comparison, ESPN just paid WWE $325 million a year for JUST their PPVs - not weekly Raw, weekly SmackDown, weekly NXT, not the back catalog (that I know)...*just* the PPVs. And there's only roughly 12 a year. It'll be more total days of coverage since some events are now two days & such, but still. That comes out to just over $27 million per event.
Paramount, on the other hand, is getting *all* of the UFC - their PPVs, Fight Nights, their multiple tv shows, etc.
This is huge and where I think the value lies for fans. I barely follow the sport but I'll definitely sign up this January and start watching again. Every live fight in one place, essentially one event every week or so, for $120/year. Not so often I'll get worn out, not so expensive I can't justify the cost. I bet a lot of people sign up come January
I think this is being seriously overlooked.
I was thinking about it yesterday, and there's very little you can watch the entirety of via one network or streaming platform.
NHRA drag racing and IndyCar are all both on Fox channels. But that's it.
NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL, WWE, even NASCAR - you have to have multiple subscriptions to multiple platforms to be able to view it all. Someone posted a tweet in the NFL thread showing that if you wanted to have access to every NFL game on streaming, you'd have to subscribe to ESPN, Prime, Netflix, Paramount, Peacock, Fox, and RedZone...plus Sunday Ticket if you wanted to go that far.
That's crazy town.
Having a "top tier" (in its sport) league completely under one streaming service's umbrella is nothing to sneeze at, IMO.
