Paramount Skydance (formerly Paramount Global) has acquired exclusive rights to show Ultimate Fighter Championship (UFC) mixed martial arts fights in the US from TKO Group for $7.7bn, the companies said in a statement.
The agreement is for seven years, starting next year.
The fights will be broadcast by streaming service Paramount+. Paramount will be able to show some of them simultaneously on CBS.
The tournament is currently shown by ESPN, owned by the Walt Disney Co. Its contract with it is valued at $550 million a year.
TKO president and chief operating officer Mark Shapiro said the company was attracted to the deal with Paramount by the possibility of showing the fights on CBS and the partner’s willingness to forgo charging viewers to watch each broadcast (the pay-per-view model used by ESPN).
Paramount has also signalled that it would like to acquire international rights to UFC content, which will become available in the coming years.
TKO’s active negotiations with Paramount began in early June after an exclusive negotiating period with ESPN. That said, there were other contenders for the contract.
ESPN last week bought the premium content rights to wrestling tournament organiser World Wrestling Entertainment (World Wrestling Entertainment), which is also owned by TKO. The agreement is valued at $1.6bn and is for five years.