{"id":215239,"date":"2025-10-15T12:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T12:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/215239\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T12:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T12:40:07","slug":"dana-white-expects-contender-series-to-leave-espn-and-end-up-at-paramount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/215239\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White expects Contender Series to leave ESPN and \u2018end up at Paramount\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Dana White\u2019s Contender Series is done for another year, but don\u2019t worry! It will be back again in 2026, and White just dropped where he thinks the popular scouting show will land.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The UFC is leaving ESPN+ at the end of 2026 for Paramount+ and CBS in a deal worth $7.7 billion over seven years. That deal includes all Fight Nights and numbered events which were previously pay-per-views, but did not include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-news\/382064\/more-deals-to-come-dana-whites-contender-series-and-the-ultimate-fighter-rights-still-up-for-grabs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shoulder programming<\/a> like The Ultimate Fighter or Contender Series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">There was some speculation that those rights could go to ESPN to keep the sports giant\u2019s toe in the water, but following the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-contender-series-dana-white\/395956\/ufc-contender-series-results-live-coverage-and-full-fight-highlights-season-9-ep-10\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">final episode of Contender Series season 9,<\/a> White gave his guess for who will seal up the rights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cYeah, it\u2019ll end up with Paramount,\u201d White said. \u201cIf you ask me and I honestly answer you, then I would say it ends up at Paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Paramount is already proving to be a great partner to UFC parent company TKO. Investment analysts have said the network payed above market price for UFC media rights, and they followed that up by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/boxing\/392437\/zuffa-boxing-follows-ufc-lands-long-term-streaming-deal-paramount-plus-cbs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">signing Zuffa Boxing<\/a> to a multi-year deal with undisclosed terms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cIs that the biggest deal done for a promotion that hasn\u2019t put on an event yet?\u201d Oscar Willis of The Mac Life asked of Zuffa Boxing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cDefinitely,\u201d White said with a laugh. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely gotta be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">We\u2019re happy to hear the UFC seems to be putting all its eggs into the Paramount+ basket. MMA fans are so close to being able to cancel their ESPN subscriptions, and we have no doubt that Contender Series would have ended up on the new overpriced ESPN Unlimited service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">As it stands, Paramount+ is getting rid of monthly $80 UFC pay-per-views, and now they\u2019re going to save us from ESPN monthly fees. This deal hasn\u2019t even started, and it\u2019s already been a huge success for our wallets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dana White\u2019s Contender Series is done for another year, but don\u2019t worry! It will be back again in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-215239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}