UFC, Anheuser-Busch Sign Largest Deal in MMA Company’s History
UFC has a new six-year deal with Anheuser-Busch, the largest sponsorship in the MMA company’s history.
Under the new agreement, which starts in January, Anheuser-Busch Inbev (NYSE: BUD) will be UFC’s global beer partner. It will prioritize Bud Light in the United States, with the discretion to emphasize any of its other brands (such as Corona, Stella Artois, Quilmes and Michelob Ultra) in other countries.
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While terms of the deal weren’t announced, it’s UFC’s largest ever on a per-year basis, according to someone familiar with the details. Two years ago, the company signed a 10-year partnership with Crypto.com that will pay an average of $17.5 million per year if all the options are hit.
This is the third major deal completed in the last few weeks by UFC, which in September formally merged with WWE into a new publicly traded company called TKO Group Holdings (NYSE: TKO). UFC announced on Oct. 11 that it would be holding its first event in Saudi Arabia in connection to the Riyadh Season festival; one week later it announced it was extending its relationship with Abu Dhabi’s department of culture and tourism to hold events in the Emirates through 2028.
The Anheuser-Busch deal is also a return to a familiar partner. Bud Light was UFC’s beer partner for a decade from 2008 through 2017, and some within the company view that deal as a major milestone for UFC—mixed martial arts was at the time considered by many to be too barbaric for mainstream sports, and the company likely benefited from the legitimacy of a partnership with the country’s largest brewer.
After that first Anheuser-Busch deal ended, Modelo took over as the UFC’s official beer partner in the U.S. (Anheuser-Busch owns Modelo’s international business, but not its U.S. rights, thanks to a 2013 settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.) UFC also had much smaller, one-off deals with beer companies in other countries.
It’s been a tumultuous year for Bud Light. In April the company drew criticism and boycott calls from conservatives over the brand’s partnership with transgender activist and TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney. By some estimates the controversy cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars. In August, Anheuser-Busch reported a quarterly revenue dip of 10.5%, which it said was “primarily due to the volume decline of Bud Light.”
Donald Trump was among the public figures who joined the chorus of people criticizing Bud Light in the wake of the Mulvaney partnership. Trump also has a long and well-documented relationship with UFC, and a close personal relationship with UFC president Dana White.
UFC was originally valued at $12.1 billion in the TKO merger. It had $1.1 billion in revenue in fiscal 2022.
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