...NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) March 19, 2019--S&P Global Ratings said today that UFC Holdings LLC's new agreement to exclusively distribute pay-per-view (PPV) bouts in the U.S. through ESPN+ could reduce operating variability at the company over time. This agreement reportedly entails ESPN paying fixed media rights fees to UFC for the PPV content, which is similar to the current fee-based revenue model for the two companies' existing agreement on non-PPV content. In addition, UFC and ESPN extended the duration of the multi-platform distribution agreement that they reached in 2018 (which did not include exclusive PPV distribution rights) to seven years from five years. Although financial details of the new agreement are unavailable and we cannot currently assess its impact on leverage, the new agreement could mitigate business risk if it replaces volatile revenue from an event-driven PPV business model with a fixed fee revenue stream. In addition, if the new agreement shifts UFC's revenue...
