The World Series of Fighting and the NBC Sports group announced yesterday that the two sides had agreed to a multi-year contract extension for the mixed martial arts promotion to continue on the NBC Sports Network, along with shows on NBC.
The new deal will run through 2017 and will call for the promotion to hold 14 events a year, including events to be held on NBC.
Following the announcement of the new deal, TheMMAReport.com was informed that the NBC Sports Group was not paying a rights fee in the new deal. However, World Series of Fighting executive Shawn Lampman clarified that NBC is making an annual investment into the organization.
“NBC is making a seven figure investment in the World Series of Fighting annually,” Lampman told TheMMAReport.com on Wednesday.
The World Series of Fighting and the NBC Sports Group have been in business together since the end of 2012. The inaugural World Series of Fighting event took place on November 2, 2012 and was a time buy. A time buy is where someone, in this case, the World Series of Fighting pays a television network to air their program. After the inaugural event took place, the NBC Sports Group and the World Series of Fighting agreed to a three-year contract that Lampman stated was a barter deal.
“This deal has progressed from our initial window on NBC Sports was a time buy and there after until now, it was a kind of a barter deal,” Lampman said. “They contributed a lot of non monetary benefits to us. They considered it hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions for production and other things. As well, we received all of the inventory. We got all of the inventory for the telecast.”
The next World Series of Fighting event will take place on June 21st from The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and will air on the NBC Sports Network. This fight card will feature three title fights and will be headlined by David Branch facing Jesse Taylor for the inaugural middleweight title.
The World Series of Fighting debut on NBC will be two weeks later on the afternoon of July 5th and will be headlined by Justin Gaethje defending the lightweight title for the first time as he is challenged by Nick Newell. While a location and venue has not been announced for the afternoon fight card on July 5th, an announcement on this is expected to be announced very shortly by the World Series of Fighting.