Boxing

Milestone UFC Paramount Deal Sparks Boxing World Debate On PPV's Future

Paramount acquiring the broadcast rights to UFC has the boxing world at odds over whether the Pay-Per-View (PPV) model is dead.
Grant Young|
IMAGO / PRiME Media Images

On August 11, news broke that will alter the business landscape of combat sports forever: Starting in 2026, Paramount has acquired the U.S. streaming and broadcast rights to all of the UFC's annual live events for $7.7 billion over seven years.

All of these events will be exclusively streamed in the U.S. on Paramount+, with some also getting broadcast on CBS.

As a result of this, the UFC (which has utilized the Pay-Per-View (PPV) model for its numbered cards since the company's inception in 1993) is moving away from PPV entirely.

There are massive ramifications to all of these pieces of news. But the most pressing, as it pertains to the boxing community, is that it marks a massive shift in how the PPV is perceived.

Most boxing broadcast entities are still using PPV, but the rise of streaming services getting into combat sports — most notably of which was Netflix broadcasting the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight last year, which was available to all Netflix subscribers without additional charge — has changed this.

Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul press conference during Fanatics Fest in New York City on August 17, 2024.
Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul press conference during Fanatics Fest in New York City on August 17, 2024. | IMAGO / Cover-Images

Boxing Community at Odds Over Future of PPV

In the wake of this historic news, the boxing world is in argument with itself about whether this spells the death of the PPV structure in combat sports.

Several boxing icons certainly think so. One example is with Tyson Fury, who wrote “RIP PPV” on his  Instagram Story on August 11, along with a graphic of White’s announcement of the new UFC deal with Paramount and CBS.

It's already known that Turki Alalshikh considers the PPV structure dead, which he conveyed in a July 16 X post that read, "Great meeting with my brother Shay, CEO of DAZN. We have big vision to grow boxing and decide: No More Pay-Per-View. Starting with our @ringmagazine show in November, all Riyadh Season & The Ring events will be free to DAZN subscribers. The PPV model has damaged boxing, and we will no longer support it. We are with the fight fans. 🤝🥊🔥".

However, others aren't so quick to write off the value of PPV in boxing.

MVP (Most Valuable Promotions) co-founders Jake Paul and Nakisa Badarian, who use PPV for many of their events, still see value on it, which Bidarian conveyed in an August 11 X post that read, "The less PPV the better for consumers and the fighters who actually move the needle.

"MVP has put on the biggest non-ppv fight since the advent of cable with Paul Tyson. But PPV is not dead at all. "

Jake Paul posted a screenshot of TKO Group's President and COO Mark Shapiro saying, "The pay-per-view model is a thing of the past," and wrote, "Now they are saying PPV is dead when they have a PPV this weekend with Du Plessis and another one with Pereira and another one with Aspinal…& another 1 with…"

Ariel Helwani Shares "PPV is Dead" Stance

Top combat sports journalist Ariel Helwani shared a strong stance on the state of the PPV model in the aftermath of this UFC news on Monday, saying on The Ariel Helwani Show, "Beginning in 2026, as far as the UFC is concerned, Pay-Per-Piew is dead... the [PPV] model is finished.... Finally, MMA fans are being treated like NBA fans, NFL fans, MLB fans, NHL fans."

Regardless of whether you want to declare the PPV model dead in combat sports, it certainly was dealt a brutal blow on August 11.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young is a Staff Writer for On SI’s Boxing, New York Mets, Indiana Fever, and Women’s Fastbreak sites. Before joining SI in 2024, he wrote for various boxing and sports verticals such as FanBuzz and NY Fights. Young has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in creative writing with an emphasis on sports nonfiction from the University of San Francisco, where he played five seasons of Division 1 baseball. He fought Muay Thai professionally in Thailand in 2023, loves a good essay, and is driven crazy trying to handle a pitpull puppy named Aura. Young lives in San Diego and was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.