This weekend, the Ultimate Fighting Championship will present its UFC 330 pay-per-view at the Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With two title fights at the top of the line-up, the under card is woefully forgettable, which is a result of putting as many names as management did on the White House card for the orange blob’s birthday party in June.
Still, the MMA group is just a part, albeit an important part, of the much bigger machine, with a much bigger mission statement. Last year, Paramount, the corporation that has a deal in place to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery, signed the UFC to a massive seven-year contract worth $7.7 billion dollars with the intention of using the MMA league as another tent pole of its Paramount+ streaming service. Under the previous ESPN contract, the price of UFC pay-per-views ballooned to a staggering $79.99, which didn’t include the subscription fee to that specific streaming platform to just get the option to pay to order the event. In short, the UFC hit its ceiling in terms of what consumers were going to spend on its premium shows, especially based on the level of star power that was available at the time, given the dynamics of the organization over the past several years.
It was a full circle moment of sorts, as the UFC used Spike TV twenty years earlier to build its stars and the sport on a continuous basis to be able to sell pay-per-views at a much cheaper price than it was two decades later. Spike TV offered exposure for the brand to the casual sports fan so the general public became more aware of the events, as well as the fighters themselves, prompting the original surge in popularity in the early-2000s. Sure, the ESPN deal translated into dollars because of how much the product was put behind a paywall, but the other side of the coin was that it prevented more fighters from becoming stars to the previously mentioned general public.
The Paramount deal flipped the script on that, while trying to keep up with the evolving media landscape. Some of UFC programming could be broadcast back on linear channels again because of the amount of networks under the Paramount umbrella, but most importantly, the biggest cards, the pay-per-views that were $79.99 previously before the ESPN fee, were included in the standard $7.99 subscription to the Paramount+ platform. The UFC brand became expotentially easier to afford and more accessible to the casual sports fans again.
Furthermore, as UFC management theoretically builds another generation of stars after the abrupt retirement of Jon Jones, the debacle of Conor McGregor, and the exit of other aging fighters, there isn’t nearly as much pressure to have to sell the audience on the pay-per-views. It’s an unintentional benefit of moving to the bulk-pricing model, the line-up doesn’t have to be as stacked to justify the lower price.
On paper, the UFC 330 fight card wouldn’t be worth the $80 that it would’ve cost two years ago, but for 10% of price, along with the other content on the service, it becomes an inexpensive way to watch two title fights. Plus, there’s always the potential for one of the undercard fights to surprise the audience with a great performance.
In the main event, Islam Makhachev, who fought just once on the Paramount platform before, a unanimous decision victory over Jack Della Maddalena to claim the Welterweight Championship at UFC 322, will defend the belt against Ian Garry, a gritty Irishman with just one blemish on his pro record. Makhachev, who also only has one career defeat, has quietly put himself in the record books over the past few years, racking up the most defenses of the UFC Lightweight title with four before he tied the longest win streak in the history of the organization at 16, with the win on the score cards for the Della Maddalena bout. He vacated the 155 LBS belt in mid-2025 before he won for the 170 LBS championship last November.
Aside from training at the same gym, the American Kickboxing Academy, as well as their shared Russian background, Makhachev has drawn comparisons to Khabib Nurmagomedov for the similarities to his well-rounded and relentless style. That’s why the pick for the winner of this fight is rather simplistic, at least in terms of reasoning. That’s not to say that Ian Garry is a tomato can, he’s not, and his record of 17-1 proves that. However, Makhachev is more well-rounded and more experience, with victories over better competition so I have to pick him to retain the title. Of course, anything can happen in MMA, which is what makes the sport so much fun to follow, but I’d say that Makhachev probably gets the victory with a submission.
While Mackenzie Dern defending the UFC Women’s Straw Weight championship against Gillian Robertson is basically a toss up, the night could be a coronation of sorts for Makhachev. Despite being a champion in two divisions throughout his UFC career, the Russian fighter doesn’t get nearly as much fanfare as you might expect from those accomplishments. Some of that has to do with the lack of continuity within the divisions themselves, but with a strong showing, Makhachev could propel himself to another level of stardom for the organization.
That’s where the UFC plays its part in the bigger picture of the Paramount business plan, a scope that has a lot of moving parts that can impact the overall media landscape. Essentially, the UFC was brought into the fold with that mega $7.7 billion deal to draw in the younger demographic that is often associated with MMA. Based on Paramount’s earning reports earlier this year, the UFC has done that, garnering enough additional subscribers to get the total of Paramount subscriptions close to 80 million. Still, the corporation has reported substantial losses of $573 million recently, partially because of the payments of the UFC contract. This is where the broader scope comes into the picture, as the buyout of Warner Brothers Discovery is currently the subject of a lawsuit by nearly a dozen states because of anti-trust concerns. Warner Brothers and Discover merged a few years ago, but the buyout is the subject of controversy, mostly because Paramount CEO, David Ellison is a longtime associate of Donald Trump. The theoretical concern is that if the buyout is approved, it further condenses the media under one banner, specifically CNN, a network critical of the current administration, could be disbanded entirely, technically disrupting the distribution of information to the public.
The $110 billion deal isn’t set to go to court until March of next year, prompting fees for current Paramount shareholders that would start in October if the sell isn’t finalized before that. This gives Paramount the incentive to discard CNN from the deal in an effort to get the sale to be official. Regardless of how long it takes, when Paramount gets control of at least most of the Warner Brothers Discovery video libraries, it adds even more content that can be used to generate more subscribers in the process of making massive profits. Aside from the political implications of such a buyout, from a content perspective, this takes another step toward the downside of traditional television with more of a focus on streaming platforms. With HBO and the classic Warner Brothers library potentially under the Paramount banner, the UFC will be the stand out sports property of the platform.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
