{"id":398884,"date":"2026-01-09T19:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/398884\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T19:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:10:09","slug":"exclusive-espn-purges-mma-on-air-talent-after-losing-ufc-rights-to-paramount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/398884\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | ESPN purges MMA on-air talent after losing UFC rights to Paramount"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Worldwide Leader has tapped out with a significant chunk out of its MMA coverage.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN, which had been the UFC\u2019s broadcasting home for the past seven years before being <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/08\/11\/sports\/ufc-rights-go-to-paramount-in-stunning-7-7-billion-deal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">outbid by Paramount in a groundbreaking $7.7 billion deal<\/a>, let nearly all of its on-air talent contracts expire this year without renewal, sources tell The Post.<\/p>\n<p>Mainstay MMA personalities such as Daniel Cormier, Chael Sonnen, Dominick Cruz and Jon Anik did not have their contracts renewed, despite their roles as analysts and as contributors to original content, signaling a major shift in the network\u2019s coverage of the sport.<\/p>\n<p>Jon Anik, Laura Sanko, and Daniel Cormier are seen on the broadcast during the UFC 321 event at Etihad Arena on October 25, 2025. Zuffa LLC<\/p>\n<p>Cormier and Sonnen specifically hosted a popular ESPN series, \u201cGood Guy\/Bad Guy,\u201d which was also not re-upped by the network. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Worldwide Leader has tapped out with a significant chunk out of its MMA coverage. ESPN, which had&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,31771,4226,1161,641,638,9489,82,1276,6998,2089,640],"class_list":["post-398884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chael-sonnen","tag-daniel-cormier","tag-espn","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-paramount","tag-sports","tag-sports-entertainment","tag-sports-media","tag-sports-plus","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}