The UFC arrives at T-Mobile Arena the way it always does. Loud. Polished. Confident. But this time, it carries a new promise stitched in broadcast ink. UFC 324 marks the promotion’s first event under its Paramount+ partnership, a media deal that roughly doubles the UFC’s previous annual rights value with UFC parent company TKO Holdings securing a reported $7.7 billion rights deal through 2031 with Paramount. In a sports media landscape chasing relevance and youth, the UFC has become something rare. Reliable. Global. Bankable.
Saturday is the ceremonial opening of a richer era, following Friday’s Zuffa Boxing debut at the UFC Apex, the first TKO Group Holdings combat sports event under the Paramount+ banner.
UFC 324 Introduces Doubled Fighter Bonuses
As the revenue grows, so does the long-running conversation about the fighters who make it possible.
Dana White told Sports Business Journal that UFC will double its post-fight performance bonuses, raising individual awards from $50,000 to $100,000. Where the UFC once distributed $200,000 per event, it will now commit at least $400,000 per card to Fight of the Night and Performance of the Night winners.
But the company has added a new incentive, a small but symbolic nod to the men and women who finish fights in decisive fashion. Fighters who score a knockout or submission without earning a marquee bonus will now receive $25,000. A reward for ending things early. A financial echo of the roar that follows a sudden finish.
Performance bonuses remain separate from base purses and win bonuses. The UFC has raised payouts before, including a special increase at UFC 300 in 2024. But this is different. This arrives not as a one-night favor, but as a policy aligned with a billion-dollar media expansion.
Whether it feels like progress or optics depends on where you stand. In the boardroom, it reads as strategic alignment. In the locker room, it may read as a concession. In the cage, it reads as incentive: finish fast, finish violently, finish memorably.
“Wherever I do a deal, my goal is to build businesses, mine and theirs,” White said in a statement. “In the past, we helped build Spike TV, we helped build Fox Sports 1, and we helped build ESPN+. Now we’re doing the same with Paramount Skydance, and this is how we’re doing it.”
No Pay-Per-View Purchases for Fans
The new Paramount+ deal has mostly eliminated PPV buys albeit for a select few later to be determined premium events. However, basic plans have increased to $8.99/month ($89.99/year) for the ad-supported “Essential” plan and $13.99/mont ($139.99 annual) for the ad-free “Premium” plan which throws in Showtime.
Chaos Outside of the Octagon Delays Broadcast Over an Hour
The event had been planned for a 5 p.m. start time, earlier than usual, even after the card had already been weakened by the earlier loss of the co-main event between Kayla Harrison and Amanda Nunes.
Further setbacks came at weigh-ins when bantamweight contender Cameron Smotherman collapsed after making weight, prompting the cancellation of his fight against Ricky Turcios. On fight day, Alexander Hernandez’s bout with Michael Johnson was also called off following a wave of social media speculation.
But the deeper story is this: a company entering its richest chapter, fighters chasing a slightly larger slice of it, and a sport still wrestling with how to divide the fortune generated by its violence.
