The world’s premier mixed martial arts organization, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has signed a multi-year partnership with the global streaming platform, Discovery. Through this long term agreement, the popular sport looks forward to increasing its outreach across the globe.
In this agreement, UFC will reach their fans in the Netherlands with the discovery+ platform, which is the exclusive streaming service of Discovery and in Spain via Eurosport, which is the subsidiary pan-European sports network of Discovery. In addition to the live coverage of every event in the championship’s calendar, enthusiasts of this sport will also get access to other UFC programmings such as Countdown and UFC Connected. The unique coverage on Discovery will also be supported by exclusive content, containing the latest news and interviews, posted on eurosport.nl and eurosport.es to reach the new generation of fans that the sport is targeting. Some of the former athletes of the tournament would also be giving expert analysis and insights through the programming of both networks for the whole year under this deal.
Gijs Poortman, the Head of Discovery Sports Netherlands gave his views on this association and said, “Our experience in building and rolling out one of the most rapidly expanding streaming products in discovery+ will provide a natural home for UFC, one of the fastest-growing and most exciting sports globally. With the acquisition of the rights to broadcast UFC on discovery+, we are further expanding our already broad sports offering with the most premium fight sport.
He further added, “To create the perfect experience, we will produce a full studio show and have additional content for the MMA fan, so discovery+ will truly become the new Streaming Home of UFC in The Netherlands for years to come. With Eurosport.nl as the destination for UFC news, we feel we can perfectly serve the Dutch UFC fan. We can’t wait to start.”
Fernando Ruiz, the Sports Editorial Senior Manager of Eurosport Spain also commented on this massive deal and said, “With this new addition to our portfolio of rights, Eurosport further strengthens its extensive catalogue of international sports events to offer fans in Spain. In addition to broadcasting the most competitive mixed martial arts events to more viewers, fans of combat sports will be able to follow the best coverage of UFC on Eurosport’s channels and digital platforms in Spain until 2026.”
David Shaw, the UFC Senior Vice President of Content and International also gave statements on this agreement, which said, “The Discovery team came to us with a vision perfectly aligned with our growth aspirations in Europe. This multi-year, multi-territory agreement will give UFC and our athletes a platform like never before, providing our fans in the Netherlands and Spain with access to more localised content as well as all the big blockbuster events. We’re excited about taking UFC to the next level alongside Discovery.”
UFC has recently signed a plethora of lucrative deals with brands such as Timex, CLMBR and Sweet Sweat.