Mark Shapiro's value extraction vision of UFC 324 on Paramount
UFC & WWE are advertising agencies that just happen to book fights.
Current WWE fans are laughing at UFC fans right now.
The insufferable nature of WWE-oriented streaming subscribers being spammed with advertising block after advertising block has been a key discussion point after Year One of RAW on Netflix.
Nevermind the milquetoast ratings numbers (somehow dressed up as a major success), the Hollywood-flavored cancerous nature of WWE: Unreal that would make Eddy Mansfield blush, or the bizarre nature of “crossovers” like the not-so-Stranger Things episode from a few weeks ago.
What has defined WWE’s tenure so far on Netflix — and now ESPN — is advertising.
Mark Shapiro’s dream scenario for WWE is what UFC is currently utilizing. Five matches in a three-hour format.
Somehow, this happened to fly over the heads of so many WWE fans who recently became agitated when Bruce Prichard attempted to rationalize WWE’s new five-match PLE policy.
This is what ESPN is reportedly paying $1.6 billion USD for?
Everything is a profit center for Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro.
UFC just signed a $7.7 billion USD deal with Paramount for seven years. How will TKO & Paramount extract even more money out of this venture, especially given Paramount’s recent turmoil surrounding their failed bid to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery assets and Larry Ellison’s mounting debt bomb at Oracle?
Ads. More ads. And even more ads.
How do you sell more advertising? You expand the amount of time for each UFC & WWE show. Fewer fights per hour. More video packages and brand activations.
Guess who predicted this would happen? Raging TKO bull Scott Barrett.
The first fight on the UFC 324 main card (9 PM Eastern start) officially started 32 minutes later. Three hours later, we saw some light at the end of the tunnel with Justin Gaethje spoiling UFC’s Paddy Pimblett coronation.
Advertising everywhere. Ring entrances. During fight rounds. Post-fight exits.
On X (fka Twitter), the subject of advertising at UFC 324 was a largely-populated trending topic.
Even if customer reaction is strongly negative to TKO’s bombardment of advertising, it’s still a psychological win for Mark Shapiro. Why? Because the negative public reaction reinforces UFC as a “hot” brand that corporate sponsors want to be a part of. Or for prospective brands that haven’t signed up yet, should be a part of.
It’s water cooler discussion. Shapiro’s TKO team is reframing the parameters of fan conversation.
The contrast of advertising between Zuffa Boxing’s relatively clean mat and UFC’s NASCAR experience was truly night and day. Mark Shapiro hates clean mats. He will make sure to change this sponsorship situation in a hurry.
Is all of this somehow a betrayal of loyal UFC fans who paid $60, $90, $120, or $140 a year for a Paramount Plus subscription? Sure. But so what?
When Dana White was asked about the voluminous infusion of advertising, he had no apologies.
“All of this is a work in progress. It’s $8.99. These guys got to make some money, too.”
Ari Emanuel, Mark Shapiro, and Nick Khan are cold-blooded Hollywood agents. They are also in the advertising and sales business. This is their bread and butter. It is why they have put their trust and faith in sales ace Grant Norris-Jones to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sponsorships.
UFC and WWE are merely vehicles to fill time blocks with sponsorships. TKO is offering fans a tradeoff: fewer fights per event or more fights but longer show duration. Pick your poison.
The result is creating a fight product that is Just Good Enough to keep selling chunks of advertising.
TKO management is full of marketing psychologists first, fight promoters second.
Mark Shapiro isn’t reinventing the wheel. He’s just part of one of the most ruthless Private Equity players in sports and entertainment. Egon Durban is the real man behind this curtain. The Keyser Söze of TKO, as a close confidant recently remarked. One read of the recent Altshares Federal lawsuit against Endeavor for their take-private transaction paints a bloodthirsty picture.
Not only is everything for sale, everything is also a commodity. Including the news. TKO is made for this zeitgeist, one that is dominated by customer acceptance and resignation to behavior labeled as learned helplessness.
DraftKings vs. Bet365 vs. Polymarket vs. FanDuel
Everyone has a price for The Billion Dollar Man.
I just want to know where UFC fans are finding all this money to spend on betting. Especially that person/entity who supposedly spent $1.3 million USD on Paddy Pimblett.
The amount of prediction gambling advertising on the UFC 324 broadcast painted an addictively powerful picture of Polymarketing, well, everything.
With the DraftKings integrated sponsorship arrangement with UFC reportedly expiring, we are now in the Polymarket Era of UFC, thanks to Ari Emanuel’s direct negotiation. That doesn’t mean DraftKings is gone entirely, though.
For the UFC 324 broadcast on Paramount, we had Bet365 as UFC’s new official gambling sponsor. Polymarket is now UFC’s “predictive market” sponsor. DraftKings and FanDuel are running commercials as well.
Unfortunately for Polymarket, it seems that their very high-profile chain is being worn by losing main event fighters Jake Paul and Paddy Pimblett.
But not everyone is a loser on Polymarket. No, sir.
We’re talking about the same Polymarket in which someone bet money on Nicolas Maduro not being Venezuelan President by the end of January 2026, hours before US President Donald Trump sent the military to grab the guy out of his not-so-secure palace. Insider trading or what?
The Nevada Gaming Commission placed Polymarket and Kalshi on their proverbial blacklist — and likely for good reason. The agency recently filed for injunctive and declaratory relief in Nevada state court to try to block wagers on these “predictive” platforms.
Ari Emanuel doesn’t hold a gaming license, unlike former UFC owners Frank & Lorenzo Fertitta, so he couldn’t give a damn.
The prospects of Nevada-based UFC being sponsored by an outlaw “predictive” wagering platform are amusing but merely on a surface level.
America — or at least some of its civic and political leaders — is trying to put the genie back in the bottle after the famous 2018 Supreme Court ruling (Murphy v. NCAA) in favor of the state of New Jersey that went after a federal ban on sports gambling. It’s too late now.
Sports gambling in America is the wild west, and UFC is right in the mix.
You don’t hear much conversation about Isaac Dulgarian these days. Who knows what Nevada’s Athletic Commission ultimately has in store for him.
Discussion about suspicious betting patterns and inside information is going to remain very relevant with UFC fights in 2026. Case in point: TKO sidelined Michael Johnson vs. Alexander Hernandez, reportedly due to uncommon betting activity on that fight.
If we were living in the old days of PPV and ESPN, UFC might have been more hesitant to postpone or cancel a fight under such speculative circumstances. In today’s environment? There’s a $7.7 billion USD guarantee for the next seven years from Paramount. UFC has more flexibility and latitude to make judgment calls on (dis)allowing fights under regulatory scrutiny.
Not that a gambling scandal would make much of a dent in the zealous passion of UFC fans betting on any one of four gambling wagering betting platforms marketed on the UFC 324 Paramount broadcast.
Guess what kind of money is behind Polymarket and Kalshi? You guessed it, Private Equity and Venture Capital.
We are all just numbers on Mark Shapiro’s spreadsheet, waiting to be sold to the highest bidder.
Zach Arnold is the lead opinion writer for The MMA Draw Newsletter on Substack. You can e-mail him at fightopinion - at - protonmail dot com.
The bizness of sport. Fell asleep before the main event during the blue-out goofy music ad spaces, woke up round 1 of main, thank goodness !
God damn Dry Tits Shapiro. I swear the pacing of the Paramount broadcast is giving Fox Sports 1 vibes. It’s getting to the point where I won’t patronize their sponsors because all the same ads over and over annoyed me.