How to Watch UFC Without PPV in 2026: Paramount+, CBS and More

On August 11, 2025, TKO Group and Paramount announced a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal that moved all UFC programming in the United States to Paramount+ beginning in 2026. The rights fee works out to about $1.1 billion a year, and the key change for fans is that the UFC's 13 marquee numbered events and 30 Fight Nights all live inside the subscription with no extra charge. Select numbered events are also simulcast on CBS.

TKO president Mark Shapiro called the pay-per-view model "a thing of the past." The reason it worked for the UFC is simple: Paramount pays a flat fee whether a card sells or not, which smooths out the boom-and-bust cycle of PPV. For fans, it means a Jon Jones card and a Tuesday-grade Fight Night cost the same thing, which is nothing on top of the monthly bill.

Paramount+ has two tiers. Essential costs $8.99 a month or $89.99 a year and carries ads. Premium costs $13.99 a month or $139.99 a year, drops most ads and adds your local CBS feed. Both tiers get identical UFC access: every numbered event live and on demand, every Fight Night, the full card from early prelims through the main event, plus a library of archived fights and shows like the Deep Waters podcast. Paramount's own guidance is blunt about it: "There is no pay-per-view charge" on either plan.

Those prices went up in early 2026. Before the UFC arrived, Essential was $7.99 and Premium was $12.99, and MMA Mania noted at the time that even the old Premium price covered a year of UFC for roughly the cost of two ESPN+ pay-per-views.

One practical note: if you are coming from ESPN+, install and sign in to the Paramount+ app on the TV you actually watch on before a main event starts, not during it. Fight night is the wrong time to find out your device needs an update.

The Paramount deal includes a broadcast component. Select numbered events air live on CBS, which you can pick up for free with a digital antenna or through any cable or live TV streaming package that carries your local CBS station. The UFC's White House card, branded Freedom 250, was the showcase for this, and Dana White pitched the deal in part by imagining "a massive fight on the lawn of the White House on CBS."

CBS does not carry every card, and the UFC and Paramount decide which ones get the network slot. When a card is on CBS, Paramount+ still streams it, so a subscriber never has to switch. If you refuse to pay for anything, an antenna and a CBS schedule check on fight week is your zero-dollar option in the U.S.

UFC Fight Pass is the UFC's own subscription service, and people regularly confuse it with a way to watch numbered events. In the United States it is not. Fight Pass carries early prelims, the full fight library, Dana White's Contender Series, Road to UFC and a stack of regional promotions, bare-knuckle and grappling events. It does not stream UFC main cards in the U.S., which belong to Paramount+.

Outside the U.S. the lineup changes by market. In Canada, Fight Pass runs CA$10.99 a month or CA$61.99 a year and includes early prelims and Fight Nights but not numbered main cards. In Australia it is AU$6.99 a month or AU$66.99 a year and carries early prelims for every event. Treat it as a library and prelims product everywhere, and never as a replacement for your country's main card broadcaster.

In the UK and Ireland, TNT Sports holds UFC rights. Regular numbered events and Fight Nights air on the standard TNT Sports channels, which Yahoo Sports lists at £30.99 a month through Discovery+. That is the closest thing Britain has to the Paramount+ setup: one subscription, most cards included.

The exception is TNT Sports Box Office. For UFC 329, the McGregor vs Holloway rematch in July 2026, TNT Sports priced the main card at £19.99 on Box Office, with the prelims on TNT Sports 1 and HBO Max. Box Office events can be bought through HBO Max, EE TV, Virgin Media, Prime Video and Sky, and TNT's own guidance says only "a select number of events" go that route. In practice it is the McGregor-level cards. Check whether a card is Box Office before fight week so you are not scrambling at 2 a.m. Sunday.

Canada is the market that still looks like 2024. Sportsnet and TVA Sports hold the rights under a multiyear deal that started in 2024, and numbered-event main cards are sold as pay-per-views at $69.99 each. Fight Nights and prelims are included with a Sportsnet subscription or Sportsnet+.

That changes soon. On June 4, 2026, the UFC and Paramount announced a six-year Canadian partnership. Dana White said that "Beginning in 2027, Paramount+ subscribers in Canada will get every UFC numbered event main card live, at no additional cost." Paramount+ in Canada starts at $7.99 a month. Sportsnet and TVA keep the prelims and the 30 Fight Nights a year. Until then, Canadians pay the PPV or find a bar.

Australia got a Paramount+ deal of its own starting in 2026, but it is not the all-in American version. According to the UFC's own 2026 viewing guide, Paramount+ Australia carries every Fight Night in full plus the preliminary cards of numbered events, for AU$6.99 a month or AU$61.99 a year. Network Ten shows numbered-event prelims free to air.

Numbered-event main cards stay exclusive to Main Event, the Foxtel and Kayo Sports pay-per-view service, and you do not need a Kayo subscription to buy one. So an Australian fan who wants every main card still pays per event, while a fan happy with Fight Nights can live on Paramount+ alone.

Under the ESPN deal, an American fan who bought every numbered card paid $79.99 per event on top of an ESPN+ subscription that reached $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. Thirteen PPVs came to about $1,040 before the subscription, so a complete year ran past $1,100.

Under Paramount+, the same fan pays $89.99 a year on Essential or $139.99 on Premium and gets everything. That is more than a 90 percent cut. Even one PPV under the old system cost almost as much as a full year of Essential now.

For comparison, a Canadian buying all 13 PPVs at $69.99 is at roughly $910 before Sportsnet, and a UK fan on TNT Sports at £30.99 a month is at about £372 a year plus any Box Office cards at £19.99 each. The U.S. went from the most expensive market for hardcore fans to one of the cheapest in a single contract.

A few legitimate free routes exist. CBS simulcasts need only an antenna. Paramount+ is bundled with some Walmart+ memberships and sold as a channel add-on through Prime Video, so check whether you already have it before subscribing twice. Sports bars still show every numbered card, and in Canada that remains the cheapest way to see a main card until 2027.

What does not work: pirated streams. They get pulled mid-round, they carry malware, and the UFC has spent years getting them taken down. At $8.99 a month in the U.S., the legal option is now cheaper than the risk.