MMA fans eager to pick up a Paramount+ subscription ahead of their new broadcasting deal with the UFC in 2026 should be aware that the company are already planning to hike up the cost of it early next year.

“Our ongoing investments in Paramount+ are enhancing the value we deliver to consumers,” Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison said in a letter to investors. “To support this continued investment, we plan to implement price increases in the U.S. early in the first quarter of 2026, and we recently announced upcoming price adjustments in Canada and Australia.

“These changes will fuel continued reinvestment in the user experience and deliver an even stronger slate of programming for our customers in the year ahead and beyond.”

At this stage it’s not known how much of an increase Paramount+ intends to implement, with it’s current deal for an ad-supported subscription being $7.99 a month / $59.99 a year, while the ad-free version is $12.99 a month / $119.99 a year in the United States.

Even with a price increase, Ellison is rightly keen to stress that their 7-year, $7.7 billion deal with the UFC is a big win for fans of the sport in the U.S. given that they will no longer have to pay extra for pay-per-view events, which will now be aired for free for the price of a subscription.

“By removing the secondary pay-per-view paywall – historically a key barrier for UFC fans – we’re making these premium events available to every Paramount+ subscriber at no additional cost,” Ellison said. “We’re excited to deliver this exceptional value with the cost of an annual subscription to Paramount+ being less than just one UFC pay-per-view event under prior distribution.

“We’re confident that greater accessibility will lead to significant incremental subscriber growth and greater engagement across our platform, creating long-term value for both us and the UFC.”

Current Paramount+ subscribers who aren’t interested in UFC content will likely be unhappy with the price increase, but in an investors call, company execs noted that when previous sporting events like the NFL season or Masters gold tournament concluded, subscriber rates went down.

That indicates that sporting content is a big driver for attracting and maintaining subscribers, so Paramount+ believes the addition of the UFC, which airs all-year-round, is going to be a big win for the company.

“We could not be more excited about our partnership with TKO, Dana White and UFC and look, I’d also loop into that Zuffa Boxing,” Ellison said on the call. “Those two deals obviously makes Paramount+ really the home for combat sports. Obviously in the United States and we also have rights in Latin America and Australia. When you also look at the UFC, it is the largest sport that is not basically split off across multiple platforms. It really is a unicorn sports property. We think it’s going to drive a tremendous amount of value in terms of both subscriber growth and engagement across Paramount+ as well as CBS where there will be some aspect of the UFC that also lives on CBS.

“In addition to that, when you think about UFC and the opportunity there, there’s 100 million fans in the U.S. alone. It’s grown 25 percent since 2019 to today and it’s been doing all of that behind a double paywall in its previous home. So from that standpoint, we think when you eliminate the double paywall, it’s going to become much more accessible and we think that the growth rate will increase. Additionally to that, we think we’re offering through our subscribers at Paramount+ really significant value in the fact that for approximately one pay-per-view, you basically can access all of the UFC across Paramount+. From that standpoint, we think it’s a great value for consumers.”