[Emperor Smeat]

Turns out UFC's deal with ESPN might be even more crazy than the bumps WWE got with the NBC and FOX deals. Also seemed ESPN learned nothing from their recent financial struggles when it came to handing out bloated contracts.

Originally Posted by Observer If we go with the idea each live show is six hours, then ESPN+ is getting 150 hours of the 204 hours of live programming. It’s probably not fair to see ESPN+ is where 73.5 percent of the $300 million is spent, because the 54 hours of ESPN content will be bigger names, but if we say that 60 percent of the value, or $180 million, is related to ESPN+, and if the average viewer is paying $55 per year, that means to break even on the streaming pay, the UFC fan base alone has to increase the number of subscriptions by 3.27 million new subscribers each year in the United States alone. That is a completely insane and unfathomable number. And keep in mind of that $55 per year, much of that will be going to the cost of the site, so in reality the number they will need is far greater. For example, WWE on its $9.99 per month deal was only making a little over $2 per month in actual profit once you tack on things like production costs of all the shows and all the other costs of the network. Since UFC is paying for production, that’s a different factor, but you’re also talking about a network at $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year.