Coming off of a highly successful year in 2021, the UFC’s broadcast partner ESPN are now raising the bar once again, but unfortunately for fans it’s not the quality of the fights that’s being lifted, but rather the price of it’s pay-per-view events.
That means that the UFC’s PPV’s, which were already seeing fans fork out a wallet-busting $69.99 per show, will now weigh in at a whopping $74.99, starting with this month’s UFC 270 event that features the must-see heavyweight title clash between Francis Ngannou and Ciryl Gane.
For those keeping score, this is the third time that ESPN have raised the PPV price since taking the reigns on the promotion’s broadcast rights back in 2018.
Back then the events cost $59.99, before being shifted to $64.99 at the start of 2020 and then to $69.99 to begin 2021.
Despite that, it seems that the UFC has yet to hit their breaking point as last year saw the promotion hit a new high-mark for pay-per-view sales, reportedly in the region of 8.6 million buys in total after a slew of successful shows.
All this comes at a time when Youtube superstar turned boxer Jake Paul has become an unlikely source of pressure for the UFC as he’s been using his popularity to call out the promotion for underpaying it’s stars while daring UFC president Dana White to raise the basic minimum salary for a fighter from the current $12,000 per fight to $50,000.