TKO President Mark Shapiro Says UFC-Netflix Deal Was Close, But Netflix Only Wanted Big Events

On August 11, UFC and Paramount announced a new deal that would see all UFC events head to Paramount+ beginning in 2026. The events would air on the platform at no extra cost to subscribers.

UFC events were previously housed on ESPN+, but fans had to pay extra for the major PPV events.

Speaking on The Varisty, TKO President Mark Shapiro commented on how close UFC was to landing on Netflix.

“Even though we had a lot of interested parties, not everybody was writing a big check. We knew it was going to take a lot of time to ultimately get the numbers out there. There was one moment of disappointment, and that was when we were getting pretty close with Netflix, and they kind of stood by the fact that they didn’t want to have the volume, which we understood from the get-go. They were very upfront with that. ‘We’re looking for big events. As long as you give us one big event, we’re in and we’ll pay premium for it, but we don’t want to carry the other 30 Fight Nights.’ Over the course of conversations, they really didn’t come off of that. That’s what opened the door for Paramount,” he said.

When it was noted that Netflix had volume with WWE Raw as a weekly show, Shapiro replied, “I think that played against us. I think they felt like, ‘We have volume there, therefore, we don’t need it here.'”

Netflix was the home for the first-ever Zuffa Boxing event, which was headlined by Terence Crawford vs. Canelo Alvarez.

Elsewhere during the interview, Shapiro commented on WWE splitting its media rights deals. You can find his comments here.

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