UFC Scores Yahoo! Pay-Per-View Pact

Expanding its relationship with the portal, Ultimate Fighting Championship has pinned a deal under which Yahoo! Sports will be the online distributor for the group’s pay-per-view events.

UFC actionThe first event as part of the new agreement, terms of which were not disclosed, is UFC 82: Pride of a Champion March 1. It will be available at www.sports.yahoo.com/ufc82.

UFC president Dana White, who told Multichannel News in an interview, that the deal gives the group global reachn

It was unclear at press time what kind of impact the availability of the UFC cards on the Web would have on In Demand, which distributes the organization’s events to the cable industry. In addition to In Demand, UFC, which is owned and operated by Las Vegas-headquartered Zuffa, LLC and produces more that a dozen live PPV events annually, has those cards distributed residentially through North America via DirecTV, Dish, TVN Entertainment, Shaw Pay-Per-View, Bell ExpressVU and Viewers Choice; and commercially through Joe Hand Promotions.

According to the aforementioned Web site, buyers, for $44.95, will not only gain access to the card, headlined by Anderson “Spider Man” Silva defending his UFC middleweight crown against Pride champion Dan Henderson, but 24 hours of unlimited archival viewing.

The PPV pact follows the relationship the parties began last year via which Yahoo! began disseminating news, information and entertainment coverage of the mixed-martial arts company. In October, Yahoo! Sports launched a channel dedicated fully to MMA, off