Dana White doesn’t love move to raise UFC pay-per-view prices, but ‘it’s not my decision’
UFC president Dana White took a hands off approach when asked about the recent move to raise UFC pay-per-view prices for the third time since 2019.
“We don’t have any say in that,” White said over the weekend at UFC Vegas 46’s post-fight press conference in Las Vegas.
“We gave the pay-per-views to ESPN, so yeah, that’s their decision. You know how I feel about that stuff. I don’t love when prices get raised, but it’s not my decision. It’s theirs.”
The UFC’s broadcast deal with ESPN began in 2019.
The latest raise in pay-per-view cost from $69.99 to $74.99 is expected to take effect this Saturday for UFC 270, which is headlined by a title unification match between UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou and interim titleholder Ciryl Gane.
The cost of UFC pay-per-views was previously raised in early 2020 from $59.99 to $64.99, then again to $69.99 at the beginning of 2021, with Conor McGregor’s rematch against Dustin Poirier at UFC 257 serving as its launching point.
The UFC’s newest price hike follows a 2021 campaign that White and the Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel have touted as being the most profitable year in UFC history. According to White, the UFC sold an estimated 8.6 million pay-per-views in 2021, a record-high number over a calendar year for the promotion since the UFC’s inception in 1993.