The UFC announced a major television deal for Australia yesterday which see’s FOXTel claiming exclusive rights to broadcast the promotion’s programming for the next two years.
“The UFC is the most exciting sports organisation in the world and Foxtel is the no.1 entertainment company in Australia, so this is a perfect match,” Dana White said at a press conference in Sydney.
“Australia is pound-for-pound the No.1 UFC market for its size, and we are now going to give them more UFC content than ever before. With Foxtel, they won’t miss a single minute of the action”.
Foxtel, Australia’s biggest pay-television company runs a comparable set-up to it’s bigger brother FOX in the U.S.
Fuel TV will be the home of UFC prelims, weigh-ins, ‘Ultimate Insider’ and ‘UFC On FOX’ and ‘UFC On FX’ events.
FX Australia will be home to the new ‘Ultimate Fighter: Australia Vs UK’ series which is currently filming in the country, along with previous seasons of the long-running show.
FOX Sports 1-3 will show at least six live events per year.
Finally, The ‘Main Event’ channel will be the home of all the UFC’s major live PPV events.
With Oz now well taken care of on the television front our attention now turns to the UK who’s current deal with ESPN is due up in August. So far there’s no indication of what’s going to happen there, but given that the UFC appears to be keen to align itself with FOX around the globe it’s certainly possible that the company end up on the Sky Sports and FX UK channels there.
