UFC Fight Pass head announces departure from company

Another executive is leaving the UFC, but this time, it's on his own terms.

Eric Winter, Senior Vice President and General Manager of UFC Fight Pass, the promotion's video on demand service, announced Friday that he was leaving the company, effective immediately. In a Facebook post, Winter, who joined the UFC in July 2015, cited spending more time with his family.

"Today is an extremely sad (business) day for me as it is my last day working for the UFC," Winter wrote. "It is a tough decision to leave a company, but the personal sacrifices I was making commuting away from my family to Las Vegas on a weekly basis proved too challenging for me to overcome.

"I cannot thank the executives at UFC enough for working with me on my transition and affording me the opportunity to leave on my own terms. And the WME-IMG leaders couldn’t have been more professional and understanding."

In the immediate future, Winter, a former executive at Yahoo Sports and DirecTV, said he will work as board advisor for SeatGeek, the online ticket search engine.

Winter developed a strong reputation among MMA fans on social media for his willingness to field questions, suggestions and complaints in a prompt and respectful manner.

Thank You to all UFC FIGHT PASS customers for believing in me and the product we put in market. Gonna spend some time doing more of this ... pic.twitter.com/1ROaIkfvDE

— Eric Winter (@elwinter) January 20, 2017

Winter's departure comes on the heels of a slew of personnel changes at the UFC late last year, including at the executive level, but the majority of those decisions were layoffs by new UFC owners, WME-IMG.

It is unclear at this time who will replace Winter.