Why Paramount's $7.7B UFC Deal Was Both Overpay and Necessity

Paramount's $7.7 billion, seven-year deal for UFC media rights looks reckless until you consider what Larry and David Ellison were actually buying. The figure is roughly double what other platforms bid, and UFC Freedom 250's initial U.S. viewership of 7 million had critics calling the whole thing a disaster. But the promotion announced this week that global viewership hit 34 million once markets like Australia, China, India, and the U.K. were counted.

That still leaves the question: Did Paramount know what it was doing? According to a Sports Business Journal report from August 2025, TKO president Mark Shapiro first offered Netflix an exclusive 45-day negotiating window after ESPN's expired. Both sides were desperate, with Paramount trailing far behind Netflix and Disney+ in the streaming wars and Shapiro needing a partner willing to pay top dollar.

The Ellisons' Power-First Media Strategy

The deal makes more sense when you look at the Ellisons' broader moves. Last fall, Paramount paid $150 million for Bari Weiss' Free Press, which generates around $20 million annually. Haaretz reported at the time that the family was less interested in immediate return than in building influence. "CBS is part of this whole huge media empire that the Ellisons are acquiring. They can afford to lose money on these decisions. What they want is power," Nation columnist David Klion told the outlet.

The UFC purchase follows the same logic. Paramount bought access to Ari Emanuel and his reach into Hollywood, the Trump White House, and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. Endeavor and TKO already partner with the same political and business interests the Ellisons rely on, including Jared Kushner, the UAE's Khaldoon Al Mubarak, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer argued this week that Warner Brothers Discovery got better value with AEW programming, but that comparison misses the strategic layer. Larry Ellison financed the UFC deal through Oracle backing because he needed a U.S. sports property at this scale and no other option existed. Conor McGregor's return fight later this billing cycle will offer the first real test of whether Paramount can convert the spend into subscriber growth.

Source: themmadraw.com