UFC president Dana White guaranteed Tuesday that the UFC will secure a network television deal by Sept. 15, 2010.The UFC last week announced a network television deal with FIVE in the UK, but the program is only a best-of hour-long show. A US television deal would call for live fights.
"I'll put on one a quarter," White said on The DAM Morning Show on X107.5 in Las Vegas. "One that should have been on pay-per-view, except we'll put it on network TV."
EliteXC has been the only MMA company to have live fights on network television with CBS. The IFL aired fights on tape-delay on MyNetworkTV.
White said the four UFC network television broadcasts along with the live Spike TV cards would put less strain on fans' pocketbooks and is hoping the free fights will attract new fans the way he was drawn to boxing.
"I think you have to give back to the fans and you have to give back free fights," White said. "So we do a ton of free fights on Spike TV between Ultimate Fight Nights and some of the big out of the blue fights that we put on Spike and now we'll get a network deal and we're doing four big fights a year that should have been on pay per view but you get for free.
"That's how I became I big boxing fan," White continued. "My uncles used to watch all the fights on ABC's Wide World of Sports and I used to watch it with them and I became a huge fight fan, and that's my model. That's what I'm going to build now here today."
Get the latest gear
