UFC officially announce new UK TV deal

BT Sport Sign 3 Year UFC TV Deal in the UK

by Jack Broadey @J3cK_b

The UFC has today put pen to paper on a three year TV deal with BT Sport that goes into effect 1st August, officials today announced.

BT Sport is a soon to launch lineup of premium pay channels in the U.K. and Ireland. Costs for the channels haven't yet been announced. Details are believed to be announced later this week in regard to costs and BT Sport will launch on Thursday.

Garry Cook has been instrumental in getting this TV deal sorted and whilst many will be disappointed he hasn't found a home for the sport on Sky Sports it's at least a step up from what ESPN were doing with the UFC. There were many occasions they didn't even show live events even as recent as a month ago when UFC on Fuel TV 9 in Sweden was shown on a tape delay. Several other events were on tape delay and there were major issues with recording live events with fights being cut off. The other major problem people had was trying to record an episode of The Ultimate Fighter, which normally meant recording the episode after the start was so delayed you only got about 3/4 of the programme during the scheduled time.

ESPN did nothing to grow the sport and that's where BT will hope to improve. They are building quite a package to compete with Sky and can offer a whole host of sports to now try and compete. They are dedicated to bringing UFC programming and this is great news to hardcore fans. Whether this be magazine type shows with weekly round ups or insider shows it is all a bonus from what we are used to.

The Ultimate Fighter will also find a new home on BT Sport and this could be a great tool if advertised correctly to bring new fans into the sport. If shown at reasonable time with adverts being show during live Premier League football you are opening up to a whole wave of potentially new fans.

As always the cost could be the deal breaker as most fans seemed happy enough to pay the £10 a month ESPN were charging. If the prices are of a similar nature I think most MMA fans would be happy with this. It will be interesting to hear the views of hardcore and casual viewers alike on this news today.

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