On Saturday night, you can watch a UFC heavyweight championship fight. That’s nothing new. The cost, however, is. Fox will bring two of the UFC’s brightest stars to network TV on Saturday at 9 p.m. when heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez (UFC 7-0) faces No. 1 contender Junior dos Santos (UFC 7-0). Normally this bout would have been slated for pay-per view, but the UFC and Fox wanted to prove how serious their partnership has become.
Fox Sports will use all of its platforms for the first time for a single event. Fox will carry the main event. Fuel TV will start its prefight coverage at 5:30 p.m. FoxSports.com will stream the entire undercard live, and Fox Deportes will cover the prefight and main event. Fox Sports Radio will be on the air at 5 p.m. with prefight programming and will simulcast the main event.
“What boxing was to my generation is what the UFC is to my son’s,” Fox Sports Media Group chairman David Hill said. “I firmly believe that in the period of this contract [seven years] that the dreams that the UFC’s Dana White, Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta had for this sport are going to be fully realized. In seven years, I believe UFC will become mainstream.”
The relationship between Fox and the UFC really does not get started until 2012, when Fox, FX, Fuel TV, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Deportes and Fox Sports.com begin a regular schedule of coverage that will include live events, specials and weekly telecasts.
“When I was growing up, I used to watch ABC for the big fights and then on USA network when I was a little older,” said White, the UFC president. “After the pay-per-view model, they never put big fights on free TV. We’re not only bringing big fights back to television, we’re bringing the heavyweight championship of the world.”
Examiner columnist Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this!, on washingtonexaminer.com.
