Although previously saying the "right deal" has never been presented to make the organization bite, Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White apparently has made some progress with U.S. network television.
Ideally, a network-TV deal will accompany a UFC network similar to those offered by the NFL and MLB.
And according to a recent interview with BroadcastingCable.com, the UFC may have a few options for network-TV partners.
White was asked if the UFC – which currently broadcasts on pay-per-view, Spike TV and Versus – will be on network TV in 2011.
"Yes, we will," he told the trade media outlet. "We are working on some things right now. I just can't talk about it at all because we are right in the middle of it."
White dodged specifics about the possibility of airing on NBC or FOX, but he admitted that the outlets theoretically make sense.
To date, only Strikeforce and the now-defunct EliteXC have aired live shows on major U.S. network TV, both on CBS. Additionally, both Strikeforce and Bellator Fighting Championships have aired taped fights in late-Saturday-night timeslots on NBC, and the since-folded International Fight League aired on the upstart MyNetworkTV (a collection of WB and UPN affiliates) before its demise in 2008.
But the UFC has avoided network TV, though White always cautioned that it wasn't due to a lack of interest – and instead due to offers that didn't "make sense" for the organization.
Recently, White has hinted at a "UFC network" that will debut in the next couple years. However, it's hard to tell if that's the same venture he discusses earlier this year that would bring the UFC to a worldwide online audience.
"As technology keeps growing, what I believe is going to happen – and I better be right, or we're [expletive] – is all the world is eventually going to be watching television through the Internet," White told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com) back in March. "And once that happens, the whole world will be watching.
"Back when I was a kid, I lived in Las Vegas. You had Channel 3, Channel 5, Channel 8 and Channel 13. You never thought there'd be a day 500 channels on different things and you could actually have cable and satellite and watch a thousand channels. You never expected that to happen. I truly believe all television is going to the Internet and all of the world will be able to watch certain things."
White, in fact, hinted that much of the company's (and his own) future success rests in the ability to deliver additional high-bandwidth content through the Web.
"If that doesn't happen, I'm over man," White said. "I've been doing all this [expletive] for nothing."
Regardless if the UFC will have a traditional broadcast outlet or an Internet offering, it appears a network-TV partner will accompany – not replace – it.
In any manner, it's worth noting that White has promised such a deal – specifically one for network TV – but they never materialized in his designated timeframe.
He made one such promise in 2009.
"I guarantee you by Sept. 15 of [2010], we will be on network television," he said. "I'll put on probably one (event) a quarter – one that should have been on pay-per-view except we'll put it on network TV."
The UFC and Spike TV currently are in talks about extending their deal, which expires in 2011 and has brought "The Ultimate Fighter" reality series and UFC Fight Night/The Ultimate Fighter Finale events to the cable station. It's also unknown if the organization will return next year with its "UFC on Versus" event series.
Regardless, though, White said to expect new deals that soon will increase the UFC's reach from a half-million to a billion homes.
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