As of now, financial details of the potential deal have not been disclosed but reports are indicating that the sale would be for at least 60% ownership, or controlling interest in the network. The WSJ story also indicates that G4 isn’t the only dog in the race, with the UFC supposedly in talks with other outlets regarding a potential network match.
This Zuffa initiative to acquire its own television broadcast network would allow the world’s leading Mixed Martial Arts organization to air its’ own original programming and capitalize on its massive library of fight footage, which was in large part a motivating factor that led to past acquisitions of competitor promotions such as the WEC, Pride Fighting Championships, and most recently, Strikeforce.
From The New York Times:
Comcast is in talks to sell a controlling interest in the G4 cable channel to the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
It is unclear how close the parties are to a deal, but representatives of UFC and Comcast’s NBCUniversal division were said to have met in New York on Wednesday, according to three people with knowledge of the ongoing talks. The people insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized by their employers to comment.
UFC, which produces popular but sometimes controversial mixed martial arts matches, is known to be seeking an expansion of its television footprint. It is in talks with several different potential distributors, one of the people said.
Last fall, the president of UFC, Dana White, predicted in an interview with Broadcasting & Cable that the league would start its own network “within the next couple years.” At the time he also expressed an eagerness to bring UFC fights to broadcast television in the U.S. for the first time. Presumably a deal with Comcast could also include specials on the NBC broadcast network, which Comcast also controls.
Representatives for Comcast, G4 and UFC declined to comment Wednesday night. The talks were first reported by the Web site of The Wall Street Journal.
Two of the people with knowledge of the NBCUniversal talks said that UFC, which is privately held, could take ownership of 60 percent or more of G4, which is one of the lowest-rated cable channels in Comcast’s portfolio. Its target audience of men ages 18 to 34 overlaps nicely with UFC’s audience on Spike, a unit of Viacom, which has carried a fighting reality show for the last six years.
Currently, the UFC receives about $170 mullion annually from SPIKE for programming rights to their current lineup of programming including The Ultimate Fighter and Ultimate Fight Night events. However, their current deal is in its last year and the UFC is said to be commanding nearly double that payout per year for a possible renewal with the SPIKE network.
Should that renewal not happen, and/or the UFC does indeed make a move to its own acquired network, it is highly probable that SPIKE would be looking at alternatives for MMA content, with Bellator the most likely suspect if they can be parted from their own recent new home at Viacom-owned MTV2.
Stay tuned here on TXMMA.com for more on this potential acquisition as it develops.
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