To watch Freedom 250 card, viewers will “need a Paramount+ subscription, where the event will be exclusively streamed.” This is “by design because, though CBS has aired a little UFC, it is really a Paramount+ property.” The event will “be a spectacle, but with it on a streamer, it has no chance to reach the [viewership] of the Super Bowl” (THE ATHLETIC, 6/12).
The public’s reaction to the event taking place at the White House “underscores how sports have become a partisan playing field, with football, golf, auto racing and UFC skewing Republican” -- and President Trump “repeatedly wrapping himself in those fans’ embrace.” By contrast, Trump did not attend the USMNT’s first game in the World Cup on Friday. Polls have shown that “fans of soccer, like basketball and tennis, skew toward Democrats” (WASHINGTON POST, 6/13).
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison will be in attendance for UFC Freedom 250 after “months of meticulous courtship” of Trump and his senior aides. Paramount got word on Friday that the Justice Department “would not challenge” its $111B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, “eliminating one of the last major obstacles for the deal to close.” The merger “will elevate” Ellison into a “rarefied level of media moguldom” (N.Y. TIMES, 6/14).
UFC President & CEO Dana White and Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan hosted a Meta/UFC Freedom 250 reception on the Ned’s Club rooftop in D.C. on Friday night with special guest Ivanka Trump (POLITICO, 6/13).
More headlines on the UFC Freedom 250:
- The Athletic: The White House gave UFC its biggest stage ever. So why aren’t the fights themselves grander?
- Yahoo Sports: UFC’s White House weekend has become the ultimate Rorschach test for America.
- Yahoo Sports: Beneath Lincoln’s gaze, UFC Freedom 250 becomes impossible to ignore.
- Washington Post: To UFC fighters, the White House’s small, swampy octagon is the perfect venue.
- Washington Post: The White House UFC fights are a spectacle. And a reflection of America.
