Bellator signs UK TV deal

News

Having recently snapped up British fighting talent in Michael Page, Paul Sass, Martin Stapleton and Rob Sinclair, Bellator MMA has now signed a television deal to broadcast it’s events in the United Kingdom on the Viacom-owned VIVA channel from June 2013 per a press release.

The VIVA channel is available in all 26 million TV households in the UK. In 2012, VIVA reached an average of  3.7 million individuals aged between 16-34 each month, equating to 25% of the total viewing population amongst 16-34s, seen as the key demographic for MMA. The channel has the strongest 16-34 profile of any channel available on the UK’s biggest digital TV platform, Freeview, with 50% of its audience within that age bracket.

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney had this to say:

““We are thrilled to finally bring the pure excitement of Bellator MMA to the legions of dedicated and knowledgeable mixed martial arts fans in the UK. Our long awaited expansion into the UK, one of the world’s MMA hot beds further illustrates our continued ascension in the MMA world.”

Bellator’s first event on VIVA will be the stacked Bellator 96 card on June 19th featuring notable Bellator fighters King Mo, Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral and War Machine.

A History graduate from Royal Holloway University of London, Adam Keyes has been an MMA enthusiast since being introduced by friends to videos of Bas Rutten demonstrating a warped form of self defence. From there Adam has immersed himself in all the MMA he could get his hands on and has never looked back.