TikTok has taken another step in the sports arena: It’s locked down a multiyear partnership with mixed martial arts promotion company Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
As part of the deal, UFC will offer weekly TikTok-exclusive live streams that include pre- and post-fight footage, peeks behind the scenes, “engagement with UFC athletes,” and more, TikTok said in an official blog post.
This will amount to “hundreds” of pieces of exclusive content each year, it added. Content will be produced by UFC’s Las Vegas headquarters, and will debut on the @UFC TikTok account–which was launched in 2019 and has 6.3 million followers–as well as international accounts @UFCRussia, @UFCBrazil, and @UFCEurope.
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A TikTok spokesperson tells Tubefilter that UFC plans to “engage a dedicated, full-time resource who will be focused on producing original live content for @UFC on TikTok and who will liaise directly with the TikTok team to help grow UFC’s global community on TikTok.”
In a statement, UFC SVP of international and content David Shaw described the partnership as “a great way to drive awareness to our tent pole live events while delivering compelling content to our fans, 24/7.”
Exclusive content will begin dropping this week, with Feb. 20’s Fight Night event featuring heavyweight competitors Curtis Blaydes and Derrick Lewis. The fight begins at 5 p.m. Eastern.
As we mentioned above, this is far from TikTok’s first foray into sports. It’s already teamed up with the NFL, sponsored the New York Yankees (with whom it also has an exclusive content deal), and, in September, began sponsoring 20-year-old NASCAR Xfinity driver Ryan Vargas.
