Paramount Skydance and the Ultimate Fighting Championship announced a six-year agreement on Thursday under which Paramount+ will exclusively stream UFC numbered-event main cards in Canada starting next year. The contract makes Paramount+ the sole platform for those headline cards in Canada and terminates the UFC’s traditional pay-per-view model in that market.
The Canadian expansion builds on a prior transaction completed in August of last year, when Paramount secured exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to the UFC in a deal valued at $7.7 billion. That earlier agreement granted Paramount the U.S. rights to the full slate of 13 numbered events and 30 "Fight Nights" each year.
Under the expanded arrangement, all 13 annual UFC numbered events - the shows that typically include championship bouts and the sport’s top fighters - will stream live on Paramount+ for Canadian viewers. The company said that since UFC content launched on Paramount’s platforms in the U.S. and Latin America, more than 10 million households have watched in excess of 100 million hours of UFC programming on Paramount+.
TKO Group Holdings-owned UFC organizes more than 40 live events annually across its calendar. Specific details on which events will be used to introduce the Paramount+ service in Canada will be provided later in 2026, the parties said.
The announcement comes as Paramount prepares to finalize a $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery. Warner Bros Discovery owns a live sports portfolio that includes TNT Sports’ rights to Major League Baseball and NASCAR, a set of assets the combined company will inherit once the takeover is complete.
Context and market implications
- The deal aligns with a broader industry strategy of using live sports to boost streaming engagement and subscriber growth in a mature market.
- For Canadian consumers, the move ends the UFC’s traditional pay-per-view distribution for numbered main cards, shifting marquee live combat sports content to a streaming subscription model.
- Paramount’s content play now extends across the U.S., Latin America and Canada, reinforcing its positioning as a live sports streaming destination.