One company may just have killed pay-per-view forever

A pair of monumental streaming deals have likely ended the chances of two major brands ever appearing on pay-per-view again.

In recent years, sports fans have typically only dished out cash for pay-per-view events if they were for boxing, mixed martial arts, or professional wrestling.

'It’s an outdated, antiquated model.'

Fans of the latter two have been left frustrated in recent years, as events they would have simply paid a one-time fee to watch in the past now get locked behind subscription paywalls.

Rope a dope

When the UFC inked a deal with ESPN in 2019, the fight promoter abandoned standard PPV and made its events purchasable only through ESPN+, which requires a separate subscription. Viewers, now effectively required to pay for the opportunity to pay for an event, were understandably miffed.

Meanwhile, WWE, also owned by TKO Holdings along with UFC, has until now been showing its premium events through Comcast's subscription-based streamer Peacock, without an additional fee.

Now, in the span of a week, TKO Holdings may have eliminated this hurdle — and the business model — forever.

As part of its new rights deal, UFC will abandon a PPV scheme, as viewing options slowly creep toward looking like traditional TV again.

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Down for the count

Last week, TKO signed with ESPN to provide the WWE's biggest live events to the Disney-owned network, which will shift ESPN+ to a direct-to-consumer model. Simply put, WWE events will either appear on the ESPN app or on television and the app at the same time.

As for UFC, it will depart ESPN for Paramount, which on Monday acquired the rights to UFC events for $7.7 billion over seven years, per CNBC.

All 13 marquee UFC events along with 30 "Fight Nights" will appear on the Paramount+ app, but it will not charge subscribers an added fee the way ESPN+ did.

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Fight club

What is left are two gigantic brands, no longer on PPV models, with some of the biggest wrestling events of the year appearing on ESPN's cable channels.

"The pay-per-view model is a thing of the past," Mark Shapiro, TKO Group's president, said. "What’s on pay-per-view any more? Boxing? Movies on DirecTV? It’s an outdated, antiquated model," he told CNBC.

"When [fans] find out, 'Wait, if I just sign up for Paramount+ for $12.99 a month, I'm going to automatically get UFC's numbered fights and the rest of the portfolio?' That's a message we want to amplify."

For now, subscription models may reign supreme, but it seems entirely possible that premium products may wind up being free for viewers on whichever type of screen they choose to view it on, even if it is the dreaded living-room TV.

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