NFL questioned – UFC CEO Dana White says executives at the NFL reacted sharply after the UFC secured a seven-year, $7.7 billion TV deal with Paramount in 2025—questioning why the league didn’t capture that money first. White also argues the UFC is now competing with major Amer
Dana White didn’t mince words when he described how the NFL reacted after UFC struck a massive television deal with Paramount.
Speaking about the UFC’s seven-year. $7.7 billion agreement with the network starting in 2025. White said the NFL’s executives immediately wondered how they missed that kind of money. “I don’t know this to be true, but I fucking guarantee you it is,” White said. “The day we announced that we did a $7.7 billion deal. the executives at the NFL said. ‘How the fuck did we not get this money. and how did we not know that kind of money was sitting over [there]?’”.
White’s comments arrived as he pushed a bigger claim: the UFC isn’t merely competing with other combat sports anymore, but with the biggest names in American sports—“the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball, and the NHL.”
The argument is fueled by money and attention, but it also cuts against easy comparisons. White’s framing comes alongside a reference to an earlier discussion about UFC viewership versus the Super Bowl. UFC Freedom 250, the text notes, fell short of the Super Bowl by 117.4 million viewers.
That gap is part of why White’s basic point lands anyway. Even if the UFC isn’t “exactly competing with the NFL. ” the deal math still makes the NFL’s situation look awkward. Paramount would pay the UFC $1.1 billion annually. while the NFL package on CBS is described as being worth $2.1 billion per year. The question raised is blunt: why would the NFL—far bigger than UFC—be taking a figure that is not even twice what Paramount is paying for the UFC?.
The NFL’s push for more money is tied to the broader TV-rights market. The article points to how the NBA’s 2024 TV deals totaled an 11-year, $76 billion collection, and suggests that the UFC’s own Paramount deal may have added extra fuel to NFL negotiations.
Those negotiations, however, don’t appear to be moving quickly. The NFL went back to the table with CBS earlier this year following the sale of Paramount to Skydance, but to date, no new deal has been reached. John Ourand of Puck is cited saying that “nothing is imminent.”
The reason timing matters is structural. If the NFL had pulled the plug on the CBS arrangement and re-bid the remaining years after the ownership change. it would still have to answer a harder question: who would buy the CBS package?. Fox already has a bundle of Sunday afternoon games. and NBC. ESPN/ABC. and Prime Video have their own prime-time packages. The article frames the challenge like this—unless an existing partner wants to “double up. ” the NFL would likely have to find someone else.
That’s where the broadcast antitrust exemption enters the picture. The CBS package would have to go to a streamer, a move that would likely increase political pressure because it would remove key Sunday afternoon windows from free TV.
So White’s point. at least on the surface. sticks: if Paramount can pay $1.1 billion annually for UFC. the NFL’s bargaining position looks like it could be stronger. And with no new CBS agreement in hand after Paramount’s sale to Skydance. the league’s next step remains the most uncomfortable part of the story—because it’s not just about which network pays the most. It’s about how much value the NFL has to leave on the table while the rest of the sports landscape keeps signing deals that look increasingly out of reach.
Dana White UFC NFL Paramount CBS TV deals broadcast rights Skydance antitrust exemption