UFC pay-per-view fights will now only be available with an ESPN+ subscription

Mixed martial arts fans are going to need an ESPN+ subscription if they don’t already have one.

UFC has expanded a deal with ESPN which will make all of its pay-per-view events exclusive to the Disney-owned sports network’s ESPN+ service. Starting with UFC 236 on April 13, an ESPN+ subscription will be required to purchase a UFC PPV event.

The MMA promoter originally signed a five-year, $1.5 billion TV rights deal with ESPN less than one year ago. The expanded deal brings UFC’s popular PPV events, as well as multiplatform rights, to the Disney-owned network through 2025.

“Cord-cutting is real. It’s scary the amount of subs dropping every year,” said UFC president Dana White about the new ESPN+ deal, according to Variety. “Why wouldn’t I want to be aligned with the biggest, baddest sports company in the world?”

UFC’s 12 major PPV events a year consistently rank among the top-selling PPVs. These shows were previously priced at $64.99. The fights will now be priced at $59.99 to adjust for the $4.99 per month ESPN+ subscription fee.

ESPN boasted 568,000 new ESPN+ signups over a two-day period earlier this year when UFC content debuted on its streaming platform. Last month, the sports network announced that it had surpassed 2 million subscribers less than a year after ESPN+’s launch. This news came in the wake of the company’s 2 million subscriber loss for its cable TV channel.

With cord-cutting on the rise, it's clear that both UFC and ESPN see the way the wind is blowing.