Former UFC middleweight champion and analyst Chris Weidman is curious how the UFC’s new U.S. broadcast agreement will impact the promotion’s highest earners.
The UFC announced Monday that its entire package of primary live event content will shift from ESPN to Paramount+/CBS in 2026, with linear pay-per-view being dissolved. All 43 events, including 30 Fight Night shows and 13 numbered cards, will be included in a subscription fee.
One of the key questions in the fallout has been how reigning UFC champions and those aspiring to capture a belt will be financially impacted now that pay-per-view incentives can no longer be reached under the new broadcast format.
Weidman competed in five championship fights, with four wins during his highest peak at the sport. Two of those bouts came against UFC Hall of Famer Anderson Silva in July 2013 and December 2013, the latter of which was a monumental event for the sport at the time that ended in the shock of “The Spider” snapping his leg.
Those were lucrative times for Weidman, he said, but it’s a different day now. He thinks the writing has been on the wall for some time that traditional pay-per-view should be fizzled out.
“When I was a champion, which is now 2013 when I won the belt, my second Anderson Silva fight did 1 million pay-per-view buys,” Weidman told MMA Junkie. “I can’t tell you the last time I’ve seen anything close to 1 million PPV buys, and we’re more than 12 years later. Aljamain (Sterling) is my boy, and I made more money as a champion than he did, and that was so much longer ago. It probably is a good thing. It’s going to give the opportunity to fighters to make more money. The PPV has been going down, probably with all the illegal streams and they get more expensive. It’s just hard to get the numbers like they used to.”
Onus on managers to negotiate differently with UFC?
With a new landscape now afoot, Weidman said it’s going to fall on the prominent managers of the sport to take action. He thinks a shift away from pay-per-view incentives has been slowly happening for some of the top names and champions in the sport, and said this could potentially cause a shift to larger guaranteed paydays.
“The managers, the people in charge of the MMA fighters’ careers are going to have to evolve with this and try to figure out the best ways to negotiate and find leverage,” Weidman said. “I know they have over the last five or six years, at least with coming to the UFC and knowing the pay-per-views aren’t doing as well, and they have a champion and they’re like, ‘Listen, it’s $2 a pay-per-view buy, it’s not what it used to be when we’re looking at numbers over 200,000 pay-per-view buys because it’s just not there as much anymore.’ They were already trying to negotiate bigger guaranteed payouts. I would probably guess that’s what it’s going to be. You’re going to see some bigger guaranteed payouts to the fighters.”
If the UFC’s money from its new partner is locked in and guarantees, and the champions or future champion fighters aren’t financially motivated by creating the most fan intrigue for their bouts, then it raises questions about how fight promotion could change in the new era.
Some matchups and fighters are going to gravitate interest no matter what, however, and Weidman wonders how the chips will ultimately fall when viewership for a particular event surpasses expectations.
“The goal was always to become a champion because when you become a champion, you get a percentage of the pay-per-view buys, and that’s how you make the real money, the retirement-type money as a UFC fighter,” Weidman said. “I’m curious on seeing if that just goes away and that’s not the big goal for the fighters anymore. Maybe it’s something else, or maybe being a champion isn’t the No. 1 goal. It might just be about getting the most views and, the world we’re in now, just becoming as famous as possible on social media and with streaming and stuff like that. Or is there new bonuses and elements that they give you as a perk of becoming champion? You’re going to get paid more as a champion, even if you’re not a big-name champion, but is it monster numbers like we’ve seen in the past?”
Weidman’s final word: ‘I think it’s huge’ for fighters and fans
Ultimately Weidman, like many others, is hopeful this landmark news sets up a fruitful future for everyone in the industry.
“I think it’s huge for the fighters. I think it’s huge for the fan base,” Weidman said. “The fans have had to pay for ESPN+ then they had to pay the additional $80 per pay-per-view. Now it’s going to be more likely we’ll have way less illegal streaming and way more people really tuning in to Paramount. I’m excited about this. I think when the UFC does new deals like this, the UFC really puts a lot of pressure to open with bangs and make it the coolest possible thing, then also the network itself.
“Paramount has a huge opportunity to make a real big name in the world of streaming and sports. I think you’re going to see the best foot forward from both of these companies. I think the sport is going to keep evolving and this is going to be a huge step in the right direction.”
To hear more from Weidman, check out his complete appearance on “The Bohnfire” podcast.
