UFC: Hardy vs. Lytle off ESPN in UK, on Premier Sports
Over the past two years, ESPN has shown UFC main events & preliminary bouts for our viewers & fans of…
Over the past two years, ESPN has shown UFC main events & preliminary bouts for our viewers & fans of the sport. We have recently been informed that we are not able to continue to show some live UFC content on our channel. We & the UFC are working to find a solution to this as we understand your concerns. ESPN continues to televise UFC main events and provides coverage of UFC and mixed martial arts online at ESPN.co.uk & ESPN.com, & on TV via MMA Live.
Thanks for your patience.
UFC UK President and Managing Director of International Development Marshall Zelaznik dettails why, and reveals that the fights wi
“Versus programming falls outside of our current deal with ESPN. While efforts were made to get ESPN the carry the Hardy fight, we could not come to terms. We understand UFC fans and ESPN customers will be disappointed, so the UFC has made the entire main card available – for free – live and on-demand all next week to ensure everyone can see this fights.”
“The Versus shows only came into being in early 2010, after our agreement with ESPN had already been signed. Nevertheless we have worked with ESPN to bring these cards to ESPN subscribers; but on this occasion with Sunday’s fight ESPN decided not to license the event.”
“Ultimately, we did all we could to try and get this programming out. There’s a some of talk online that this is a step towards all UFC events going on Pay-Per-View in the UK – truth is this has not been a factor in this situation. ESPN continues to show the vast majority of major UFC action and with our relationship with Five there is plenty of content available to our fans. We feel confident that our hard core fan base will understand and find a way to see the fights through UFC.tv.”
Insidefights.com reports that the fights will air free on Premier Sports In The UK.
Good news for UK UFC fans as after the breakdown in talks between ESPN UK and the UFC over airing UFC on Versus 5, Premier Sports has stepped in to show the event headlined by Dan Hardy. Even better this will be shown free to air, meaning that all Sky subscribers will be able to watch the action from 2am Monday 15th August. Premier Sports made the announcement on its Facebook.
This will be the first time the sports channel has aired a UFC event although it has shown domestic MMA cards and a large number of top international boxing events.
How to watch free online:
UFC Live: Dan Hardy v Chris Lytle
The preliminary events are ufc facebook page. just ‘like’ the page and watch prelims from 10.45pm
After that it goes to 2am main card – watch free on UFC.tv. Registration takes 2 minutes and incurs no cost. The event is on replay at ufc.tv for the next week, so if you miss it, you can just go on and watch it again.