UFC’s Monopoly on Live PPV MMA Events Forces Fans to Pay Inflated Prices, Class Action Lawsuit Alleges

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A proposed class action lawsuit accuses the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) of wielding its stranglehold on the market for top-ranked mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters to monopolize the market for live pay-per-view MMA events, shutting out any would-be competitors and causing consumers to pay artificially inflated prices to watch PPV-level fight cards.

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The 190-page antitrust lawsuit contends that the UFC, wholly owned and operated by Zuffa, has spent roughly the last 20 years monopolizing and maintaining its grip on the PPV event market as a profit center “for the UFC and the UFC alone.” Without competition in the market, the filing stresses, consumers are forced to pay inflated prices for the one online streaming service—Paramount+, which paid $7.7 billion to secure UFC streaming rights and then raised subscription costs after the acquisition—that carries the UFC, which raised its prices less than a month into its deal with the promotion.

The lawsuit summarizes that even though the UFC has moved away from the traditional PPV model and toward streaming, watching the promotion’s events “still comes with inflated prices” due to its complete market control.

“Antitrust law was designed to prevent this result,” the class action lawsuit reads, adding that the goal of the litigation is to enable fans to watch PPV-level MMA bouts and subscribe to a streaming service without paying exorbitant prices stemming from the defendants’ alleged monopoly.

The complaint explains that MMA operates distinctly from other major sports in the United States, which typically have multiple teams in a league vie for an athlete’s services. Per the suit, the UFC has asserted itself as the sole entity offering meaningful opportunities and contracts to fighters. Once under contract with the UFC,  the case relays, a fighter is slotted into bouts, or matches, against other UFC-contracted fighters, and multiple bouts are often aired in one single event called a “card.”

However, the filing argues that, through the alleged anticompetitive conduct, the UFC has weeded out every other promotion offering MMA contracts and fighting opportunities to athletes, giving UFC monopsonistic control over the market for top fighters. With outsized control by the UFC over the top MMA fighters with the largest fan bases, other MMA promotions were forced to either get bought by the UFC or function as a “feeder league” for lower-ranked fighters, the lawsuit says.

The UFC is no stranger to antitrust litigation, the case reports, as the company agreed to a $375 million class action settlement last year covering over 1,000 fighters to end litigation from 2021 that alleged the promotion suppressed fighters’ wages as a result of its total market control.

“The UFC ensures its monopsony on Top-Ranked Fighters by giving fighters little choice but to agree to its exclusive contracts,” the suit states. “Rather than allow fighters to compete in other MMA Promotions, the UFC locks them in with standard-form agreements under which the fighters cannot accept Bouts elsewhere, often for years.”

As a result, the suit maintains, the only place to watch any bouts with big-name fighters is through the UFC. Unfortunately for fans, this exclusivity has a direct correlation with the rising cost to watch events, particularly pay-per-view events, as the UFC is the sole price-decider when it comes to viewership access.

Related Reading: Class Action Lawsuit Alleges WWE Misled Consumers About Monthly Cost to Stream Live Events on ESPN

Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White admitted that, even in the PPV era, it cost upwards of $1,200 a year to be a fan of the organization. According to the lawsuit, this is most egregiously demonstrated by the year-to-year spike of the average cost to watch UFC cards, which, per the complaint, cost around $30 in February 2005 and $80 in December 2025, with a nearly $20 increase per event in the past six years alone.

Not only do these price increases tremendously outpace inflation, but they are also arbitrarily determined, with “no resemblance” to the pricing increase seen in other competitive sports not under the operation of a sole organization, the case claims.

“[A]s economic theory would predict, when there are competitors in a market, such as in professional wrestling, the competition leads to more choices for the end user, better quality productions, and better pricing,” the complaint reiterates. “When it comes to MMA, the UFC’s monopolistic practices have led to an absence of choice and to inflated pricing.”

Though the accusations in the lawsuit primarily concern the pay-per-view era, the suit emphasizes that conditions for fighters and fans have yet to meaningfully improve in the streaming era. Just 10 days before the first UFC match was set to air on Paramount+ in January 2026, the price for an annual subscription to the service with ads spiked by 50 percent, from $60 to $90, and an annual subscription without ads increased by approximately 17 percent, from $120 to $140, the class action lawsuit says.

Paramount CEO David Ellison reportedly confirmed that this price increase was a direct result of the streaming conglomerate’s acquisition of the UFC. The case stresses that prices will likely continue to increase “as long as the UFC’s monopoly persists.”

Though the price to access events has dropped in the streaming era, the complaint asserts that this adjustment is unsustainable, as it leaves little room for any checks on the power of the UFC and still diminishes any competition within the industry.

“Ending the UFC’s control will provide more competition for Top-Ranked Fighters and for MMA Promotions looking to present PPV-Level MMA Cards,” the filing summarizes. “In turn, that competition will provide MMA fans with more viewing options and force MMA Promotions, including the UFC, to compete on quality and price.”

The UFC class action lawsuit looks to cover classes of consumers in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin (the “Relevant States”) that consist of:

• All individuals and entities in the relevant states who purchased a UFC pay-per-view during the applicable statute of limitations period ending on January 1, 2026 (the “PPV Class”);
• All persons and entities within the relevant states who paid for a subscription to Paramount+ at any time between January 1, 2026 through the resolution of this lawsuit (the “Streaming Class”); and
• All persons and entities nationwide who paid for a subscription to Paramount+ at any time from January 1, 2026 through the resolution of this action (the “Nationwide Injunctive Relief Class”).

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