ESPN Plus Raising Price of UFC Pay-Per-View Events Starting in 2020

By Todd Spangler

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – fans will ring in the new year by being forced to pay a few bucks more to watch the MMA promoter’s premier pay-per-view events on ESPN Plus.

Disney’s Plus will hike the price of UFC’s tentpole PPV events to $64.99 each, starting with UFC 246 on Jan. 18, 2020, featuring the Conor McGregor vs. Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone title welterweight bout live from Las Vegas. When became the exclusive U.S. home to the mixed martial arts pay-per-view events in March 2019, it initially priced them at $59.99 apiece.

In a statement about the $5-per-event price hike, an ESPN rep said, “This price change represents a return to the price that UFC fans traditionally paid, prior to ESPN+ decreasing the PPV price for most of 2019.”

For new ESPN Plus subscribers, the McGregor-Cerrone PPV and one year’s subscription packaged together will be priced at $84.98 (compared with $79.98 previously). The base price of ESPN Plus will remain unchanged at $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year. The sports-streaming service includes dozens “UFC on ESPN+ Fight Night” events and hundreds of hours of other UFC programming, in addition to thousands of other sporting events and originals.

The UFC earlier this year inked an expanded pact with ESPN under which all PPV events will be available exclusively on ESPN Plus in the U.S. through 2025 . Under the pact with ESPN Plus, UFC continues to sell its PPV events to commercial establishments like bars and restaurants but individual fans in the U.S. can watch them only via ESPN Plus.

Pictured above: Conor McGregor at UFC 229 in October 2018