UFC Fight Pass adds Australian BRACE promotion

UFC's Fight Pass streaming service has inked a deal with BRACE MMA, considered by many as Australia's leading MMA promotion.

In a story at news.com.au, Eric Winter, the general manager of Fight Pass, stated that the agreement to air all events live will start with a Nov. 21 show.

"We are especially pleased to offer our Australia UFC Fight Pass customers a regular live event in their own time zone, and to give up-and-coming Aussie MMA fighters an international platform to showcase their skills" Winter said.

The deal will include Fight Pass customers having access to the 36 prior shows of the promotion dating back to 2009.

BRACE MMA is a tournament-based promotion that runs most of its shows in four markets, Sydney, Newcastle, Canberra and the Gold Coast of  Australia. The tournaments run throughout the year. The 2015 finals will be on the debut Fight Pass event. It is expected the previous shows in 2015, which consist of all the tournament matches, will be packaged in a manner where fans can see the tournament develop before the finals air.

A key aspect of this deal is to provide fans in both Australia and Japan, two regular UFC markets, with live prime-time content, even though the shows would be airing in the middle of the night in the North America market. BRACE MMA joins Pancrase from Japan as events that would air in strong time slots in those countries.

"We have been working hard putting on big shows across Australia since 2009 and have been working on this broadcast deal for over a year now," said Kya Pate, who started promoting MMA in 2005, and formed the company originally known as "Brace for War."  "It's an exciting day for MMA as this represents a growth in the sport locally. It's an exciting time for the fans and the fighters.

BRACE events air live in Australia on Network 10. It is the only Australia-based promotion to have television.

Sources at UFC indicate that they expect to have as many as eight different promotions around the world airing all of their live events on Fight Pass very shortly.