CWFC to broadcast free-to-air in Scandinavia with Viasat

CWFC to broadcast free-to-air in Scandinavia with Viasat

Cage Warriors Fighting Championship today announced that it has penned an exciting new agreement with Nordic broadcaster Viasat.

The deal will see all Cage Warriors events in 2014 carried by Viasat’s free-to-air networks in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, including live transmission of the promotion’s four events in Scandinavia.

Cage Warriors will make its first move into the region this spring, with details of the venue and date to be announced early next week.

Cage Warriors CEO Graham Boylan had the following to say:

“As I’ve said in the past, we have big plans for the growth of Cage Warriors in the Nordic region and this is another major step towards that,”

“We’re extremely pleased to be partnering with a broadcaster of Viasat’s stature, and I’m looking forward to working together with them in 2014 and beyond.”

Eighteen events are planned for the Cage Warriors schedule this year, beginning with CWFC 64 in London, England, on Saturday, February 15.

Nordic fighters feature prominently on the Cage Warriors roster, with several stars from across the region currently signed exclusively to the promotion, including Nicolas Dalby, Jack Hermansson and Mohsen Bahari.

CWFC events will be broadcast free of charge through Viasat’s platforms in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, details of which will be confirmed at a later date.

Graham Boylan also tweeted on Friday that Cage Warriors "will be on UK terrestrial TV" with Cage Warriors "just finishing the finer details with the new partner" As soon as the details emerge about that deal we will let you all know.

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.

If you have any opinions on this matter please comment below or tweet Kingdom MMA @KingdomMMA