On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams discuss some of the biggest sports business stories of the week, including the $7.7 billion agreement between UFC and Paramount+.
The deal was announced less than a week after the completed $8.4 billion merger between Skydance and Paramount. In the process of that merger, incoming CEO David Ellison spoke openly about his interest in live sports. The deal, so early in his tenure, backs up that talk with action.
They also talk about the size of the Paramount+ service. It had 77.7 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter. That’s more than Peacock and ESPN+ combined—two prominent sports streamers—but less than entertainment giants like Disney+ and HBO Max.
For UFC, the deal doubles the $550 million per year that the MMA company currently gets from ESPN. It also puts all of UFC’s top content in one place—unlike the ESPN partnership, which included the biggest events on pay-per-view.
The hosts debate whether this is the end of pa-per-view sports. Boxing has shifted somewhat away from that business model in recent years, and now MMA’s biggest promotion is also nixing the format. The NBA has for years sold smaller games, or pieces of games, but that hasn’t become a major part of the basketball viewership habit.
Next the hosts talk about the new streaming tie-up between ESPN and Fox. The two groups announced Monday that ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer product and the new Fox One service will be available to user in a bundle for $40/month. The news comes about a year after the collapse of Venu Sports, a three-way sports streaming partnership between ESPN, Fox and Turner. That service, which never launched, was set to cost $43/month.
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