As sources continue to paint a picture of distance in the contract renewal negotiations between UFC and Spike TV, reports broke this week that the leading mixed martial arts promotion is looking to buy a controlling stake of NBC Universal’s struggling G4 network.
The Wall Street Journal and NY Times first broke the news of the talks, with the latter saying UFC officials met with Comcast officials Wednesday about a potential deal. Adweek pegs UFC’s desired interest in G4 at 60%, which would give it control and make G4 a UFC-led network.
UFC has not publicly corroborated the talks, and sources, including F4W, say company president Dana White is denying the report in private.
In addition to giving UFC far more scheduling influence than it currently has at Spike TV, the deal might also open the door for some live fight broadcasts on NBC, which currently falls under the same banner.
As a negative, Spike TV has significantly-greater market penetration than G4, which would at least present some initial hurdles as far as reaching new viewers. As it is, UFC’s fights on the NBC Universal-owned Versus Network have performed below the usual mark for Spike TV fights.
Ongoing rumors, nonetheless, say that UFC was indeed looking at Versus as a viable option for its chief television partner, especially with rumors that NBC would get further behind the network with rebranding as “NBC Sports.”
Spike TV, meanwhile, has provided public hints that it eyes Bellator, which currently airs on Viacom-owned MTV2, as a replacement should talks with UFC indeed come to a close. In an interview several months ago, Spike interestingly noted that it was considering running live boxing cards (rather than MMA) on Sunday nights if the NFL season did not happen as scheduled, a comment viewed quite clearly as a negotiation shot to UFC.
Adweek says that talks between the two parties recently hit a notable snag due to UFC’s request of a “major increase” in its annual fee from Spike. While UFC has delivered consistently-strong ratings for the network and undoubtedly helped with its branding and awareness, it did lose a bit of its own leverage when the recent season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” predicted to be a ratings smash via the inclusion of Brock Lesnar, ended up delivering middling numbers by the show’ standards.
