That sound of panic you’re starting to hear behind-the-scenes from fight promoters is very real. 2026 is turning out to be a major stress test for the likes of PFL, LFA, Top Rank, Golden Boy, PBC, and many others who are fighting for survival.
It’s all about trying to make it show to show, TV deal to TV deal. The problem is that Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro have gobbled up all the big cash and left nothing but crumbs.
PFL is actively in cost-cutting mode, reportedly trying to raise more money in preparation for a new media rights negotiation with ESPN. Does ESPN even want anything to do with MMA after the UFC left them for Paramount?
Our paid subscribers this week get access to a nearly hour-long discussion breaking down key insider developments in boxing, MMA, and streaming economics. It’s simply not a discussion you will find anywhere else. Our friend the Entertainment Strategy Guy recently published some grizzly news about media revenues, and the data explains why Mark Shapiro so desperately wanted to land UFC on Netflix before Ari scored what looked like (at the time) the Deal of the Century.
The theme of this week’s MMA Draw podcast is all about who will survive and who will die under TKO’s reign in The Paramount Era.
Not everything is rosy for TKO, however.
Where did all the TV money go?
There’s a reason Nick Khan rushed to get a major WWE deal with ESPN, and Ari Emanuel rushed to grab $7.7B of David Ellison’s cash from Paramount for seven years of UFC.
As we recently discussed, UFC has reportedly made changes to its media rights deals with promoters who are on UFC Fight Pass. One promotion that rejected their new contract was long-time feeder LFA. LFA just signed a new deal with Vice.
The economics of Fight Pass are quickly changing.
So are the economics of Regional Sports Networks, which, a decade ago, were seen as a big cash cow due to carriage fees in cable bundling. Cable subscribers paid for RSNs whether they watched sports or didn’t watch sports.
Streaming has now killed RSNs, and leagues like Major League Baseball and the NBA are scrambling to make up for lost revenue by strengthening their own streaming media packages. ESPN may have to pick up the pieces.
The great irony is that Fanduel RSNs are going belly up because a deal with boxing-flavored DAZN fell through. Yes, that same DAZN that has Matchroom, Queensberry, and Riyadh Season.
Donn Davis raised millions by claiming PFL would ride the UFC’s coattails and getting a massive new media rights deal is falling apart. Donn Davis was shockingly on target when he said UFC would get $8 billion for their next media rights deal.
The problem is that Mr. Davis is an all-time hustler focused entirely on marketing process as substance since he cares little about the actual fights.
Donn Davis: If you’re a streamer, (it is) very, very core to have MMA. Great news for PFL because there were six bidders for UFC. Five didn’t get it. And so for seven years there’s no MMA on a premium basis other than PFL.
So we were delighted because we have been saying to the market we have a substitute product but we don’t have a substitute brand.
I’ve been building companies long enough to know what we true and what’s not true. Our product quality and our athlete quality is Coke and Pepsi. Our brand is not yet well known.
So we need a media partner to truly get behind us and promote constantly and support and we will close that gap and be a very very big company.
So to me now we have a market where there are five companies maybe even more, but five bidders who didn’t get MMA, who understand it’s mainstream, who understand its value that didn’t before because last time UFC went to market there was one bidder.
There was one bidder for UFC: ESPN. That’s it.
So, you’re seeing MMA go from off Broadway to Broadway, and that’s going to be great for us. And their value is 25 million per event cuz when people hear 1.1 billion, they think of the NBA. Well, NBA has tonnage. So many, many games. That’s 25 million every time you tune in on Saturday night. That’s what UFC gets.
PFL gets one million per event, but we’re one third of the viewership.
Unfortunately for Davis, there is zero indication that Disney/ESPN, Netflix, or any other streaming player is eager to pony up serious money for PFL.
The man who has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in cash finds himself fundraising outside of America, pinning his hopes on a dramatic restructuring of PFL that will provide them with a second media contract, paying off old debt and offering a glimmer of future growth prospects.
Meanwhile, the bean counters and accountants at TKO are playing arbitrage in a rather cynical and dystopian game of moneyball.
The calculation behind Zuffa Boxing
You don’t have to be number one. You just have to watch your enemies lose their access to cash and media rights.
With the announcement that Dana White’s pet boxer Callum Walsh will headline the Zuffa boxing debut against Carlos Ocampo on January 23rd at the APEX in Las Vegas, the TKO game plan for boxing is crystal clear.
TKO is going to watch US legacy promoters wither on the vine until there’s not enough money to put on major fights. Then, boxing lifers will have to make the decision to either retire or jump ship to Zuffa. A take-it-or-leave-it scenario.
That scenario will escalate once Congress gets around to passing the Ali Revival Act, which will allow TKO to create its own UBO and get rid of sanctioning bodies, as Dana White recently declared in an interview with (Mark Shapiro client) Stephen A. Smith.
Can’t wait to see how Dana performs on the stand in a day-long inquisition with UFC antitrust judge Richard Boulware in Federal court.
The contours of TKO’s boxing blueprint look and smell a little bit like Silver Lake’s adventures in minor league baseball with Diamond Baseball Holdings. Silver Lake has significant control of the minor leagues while MLB pays the big bills. TKO wants to control the minor leagues of boxing while SELA & Turki Alalshikh pay the big bills for major boxing fights.
Mark Shapiro’s sales pitch to business partners is that TKO controls every aspect of combat sports: “You can buy the whole league!”
From developmental outfits like NXT and Dana White Contender Series to ad-infested Premium Live Events.
All of this is bad news for anyone outside of the TKO sphere of influence. As Scott Barrett and other TKO investors believe, the moat is simply impenetrable.
But that’s where we chime in with a devil’s advocate case on this week’s MMA Draw podcast. There are cracks starting to surface, not just with the stress-testing of non-TKO promoters but within TKO itself.
The question is whether or not TKO has enough self-awareness to see what cracks are forming and if they are prepared to confront some significant political, financial, and legal challenges on the fly.
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Nate Wilcox is Editor-in-Chief of The MMA Draw. He founded BloodyElbow.com in 2007 and sold it in 2024.
Zach Arnold is a lead opinion writer for The MMA Draw on Substack. His archives can be read at FightOpinion.com.
