August 3, 2011 – Some exciting news today in the world of MMA broadcasting as the Ultimate Fighting Championship® (UFC®) and FOX Sports announced an exclusive two-year distribution agreement to air UFC programming in Latin America. Starting with UFC 133: Evans versus Ortiz this deal will give fans in 18 countries access to the world’s leading MMA promotion with UFC events will be available on FOX Sports, FOX Sports+, and FOX Sports HD, and all live events available on FOX Sports and FOX Sports HD on Saturdays at 10 pm (Buenos Aires) and 8 pm (Mexico City). With the announcement, it was revealed that FOX sports will be airing 24 UFC live events per year, along with an active schedule of popular UFC programs including UFC® Guerreros*, archive content and historical UFC showdowns.
“We felt the time was right to expand in Latin America. We launched with Globosat in Brazil in 2008 and saw the popularity for the sport to explode. We knew we had millions of fans in Latin America and wanted to give them access to content and programming developed exclusively for them,” said Dana White, President of UFC.
“We are excited to be able to bring our viewers a front row seat to the fastest growing sport in world,” said Patrick Ilabaca, VP of global marketing and business development, FOX Pan American Sports. “Through our agreement with UFC, mixed martial arts fans throughout Latin America will for the first time be able to watch live UFC events exclusively on FOX Sports, which were traditionally only available on Pay-Per-View.”
About The Ultimate Fighting Championship
Owned and operated by Zuffa, LLC, and headquartered in Las Vegas, Nev., UFC® produces over 12 UFC live Pay-Per-View events annually around the world. UFC programming is distributed in the United States on Viacom, Inc.’s Spike TV and on Comcast, Inc.’s VERSUS network. UFC content is distributed commercially through Joe Hand Promotions in the U.S. and Canadastar in Canada. Globally, UFC programming is broadcast in over 132 countries and territories, reaching 597 million homes worldwide, in 21 different languages.
UFC® also boasts a powerful presence online, with UFC.com attracting over six million unique visitors per month, while also possessing one of the most powerful social media followings in all of professional sports. To date, UFC has over six million fans on Facebook and nearly 300,000 followers on Twitter. In addition, UFC President Dana White is one of the most accessible and most followed executives in sports with over 1.5 million followers on Twitter. On January 22, 2011, UFC continued to set trends in social media, becoming the first major sports league to stream live, broadcast quality action on Facebook.
Ancillary businesses include the best-selling UFC “Undisputed” videogame franchise distributed by THQ, UFC Gym™, UFC Fight Club affinity program, UFC Fan Expo™ festivals, branded apparel, trading cards, articulated action figures and other media including best-selling DVDs and a bimonthly magazine.
About FOX Sports Latin America
FOX Sports Latin America is the number one sports pay television network in the region reaching more than 29 million households in 18 Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America and the brand that represents the best of sports programming in Latin America. Foxsportsla.com is ranked the number one sports website in Spanish-speaking Latin America by Comscore in 2010 and 2011. FOX Sports Latin America is operated by FOX Pan American Sports LLC, an international sports programming and production entity owned by HM Capital Partners LLC and FOX Sports International [owned by FOX Entertainment Group (NYSE: FOX) of News Corporation (NYSE: NWS )]. For more information please visit foxsportsla.com.
*Programming only available in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador until December 31, 2011.
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