Exclusive Information On The Potential Business Relationship Between UFC Fight Pass and Amazon
As first exclusively reported by FrankieNYC on Tuesday, February 13th on Sherdog (and later credited by Dave Meltzer and Wrestling Observer Newsletter), Amazon did an invite only beta test and aired UFC 221: Romero vs. Rockhold PPV.
The offer was invite only and beta tested registration, payment ($1) and streaming.
This comes on the heels of the news by Dave Meltzer that both Amazon and YouTube are interested in the Fight pass content.
There are several plays in motion. I heard from sources that this can be a simple content distribution offer or outright purchase of Fight Pass.
For those unfamiliar with UFC’s Fight Pass, it is an OTT (Over The Top) service that broadcast UFC’s library, as well as other MMA organizations UFC has rights to. It also broadcast live events in completion as well as prelim for PPV & UFC cards on Fox/FS1 networks.
Rumored negotiations have been sourced to me that the back library might be included in Prime membership, with any additional live programming to either be a monthly tier price or per event purchase (or both options).
Obviously, the offers are still in play and can go in different directions.
F-NYC take:
This is very interesting since at the time of the UFC sale to WME and investors, it was known that a big reason they liked the future of UFC was due to owning content themselves.
Any change in that philosophy opens other avenues that could change the future of UFC content distribution.
Of course, I will keep you updated on this.
For back history on insights regarding UFC’s TV negotiations, I first commented on the situation in October through an interview with Drake Riggs at https://mma-today.com/going-ufc-tv-deal-negotiations-fans-concerned
FRANKIE NYC
https://twitter.com/FrankieNYC_Biz
