UFC's "magic number" for its next media-rights deal is $450M a year, a "potentially staggering increase" from the $115M annual average that Fox Sports now pays, according to sources cited by Ourand & Mullen of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. Sources added that although formal negotiations "aren’t expected to start until next year, network executives have learned that the UFC plans to seek at least a 10-year deal under those terms." UFC's current deal ends in '18 with Fox Sports, which has an "exclusive window to negotiate a renewal" starting in late '17. Fox Sports President & COO Eric Shanks, part of the negotiating team that first brought UFC to Fox in '11, will "lead negotiations for the network." The package the UFC will take to market will "include the rights to four annual broadcast windows that Fox now holds, six annual cable events and weekly programming on Fox Sports 1, plus the UFC’s over-the-top Fight Pass service." It is not expected to include the UFC’s "lucrative pay-per-view business, which will likely be retained by WME-IMG." Sources said that the new package also could "include the significant change of having the networks produce the events." The UFC now "pays all production costs, so that change would increase costs for the media partner." The negotiations mark the "first significant deal under the UFC’s new owners, WME-IMG." Fox Sports is "considered a front-runner to renew the deal because UFC programming is a big part of FS1's schedule and generally draws the channel's biggest ratings." FS1's program schedule would have a "big hole to fill if the UFC went to another network." Sources said that execs inside the net "already have started balking" over the proposed $450M-a-year price tag (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 11/28 issue).
