Univision strikes a multi-year partnership with MMA franchise Combate Americas
Univision Deportes and hispanic mixed martial arts franchise Combate Americas have jointly announced a multi-year partnership to produce and distribute live Combate Americas fight programming on Univision and Univision Deportes Network (UDN).
MMA promotion Combate Americas agreed to a partnership with Univision. / Justin Ng via Unsplash
During their inaugural season, Univision and UDN will air 16 live, 90-minute broadcasts of the MMA action. The agreement marked the first time ever that Univision Deportes will produce and distribute live MMA programming, beginning with April 13’s ‘Combate Estrellas I’.
Combate Americas launched its live event series in 2015, and has considered itself a destination for ‘the best, new fighters from the U.S., Latin America and Spain,’ as well as a platform that has pitted its fighters in a country versus country style format, facing each other in 'La Jaula', the Combate Americas competition cage.
Combate Americas chief executive Campbell McLaren, a co-founder of the well-known promotion UFC, said: “We’re incredibly excited that our growth last year has culminated with a new partnership with Univision Deportes, a sports media brand that is home to some of the best sports and entertainment programming."
Juan Carlos Rodriguez, Univision Deportes president, added: “Univision Deportes is proud to partner with Combate Americas in an effort to bring fans the best programming of one of the most popular sports today. As the leading Spanish-language sports brand, our commitment to deliver high-quality sports content is reinforced through this new partnership, bringing fanáticos the top MMA events in a way that only Univision Deportes knows best.”
The complete preliminary bout card, which will stream live on UnivisionDeportes.com, will be announced soon. This is the first deal the independently-owned network has made since scoring a deal with Mexican-based soccer league Liga MX and Facebook last year.