LUX Fight League among five promoters to lose its worldwide distribution on UFC’s digital subscription service
The UFC has announced that it is parting ways with five different regional MMA promoters, including Mexico’s LUX Fight League, which have live streaming distribution deals for their respective live events.
The other four promotions that were cut from the Fight Pass family were U.S.-based Legacy Fighting Alliance (LFA), Canadian promotions Unified MMA and Samourai MMA and UAE Warriors, which is based in Dubai.
The news came as a shock to many avid MMA fans, who either subscribe to Fight Pass or simply follow MMA business news.
After all, Fight Pass has been in business for over a decade and, since then, has steadily grown its roster of live combat sports offerings.
LUX, meanwhile, has been in business since 2017, and just wrapped up its 57th live show last Friday, December 5.
Based in Mexico City, the company produced 10 shows in 2024, the most it has ever done in one year.
Without a UFC Fight Pass partnership, LUX and the other affected promotions lose revenue in the form of a license fee or media rights fee that the UFC has been paying the promotion to distribute its live event programming.
For a regional promotion, this license fee is critical to sustaining its operation because the revenue likely pays for production costs for each show, including the entire, or a portion of, the purse for fighters who compete on the show.
To continue producing the volume of events that it has been, LUX will need to find another television, or media, partner that is capable of replacing the license fee that UFC Fight Pass has been paying the promotion.
This is not an easy thing to do, especially given the state of the media business, as we head into 2026.
If it is not able to secure a media partner capable of replacing the lost revenue, LUX will likely have to take one of several possible next steps – find a source of funding to underwrite its shows, at least until it finds a partner to replace UFC Fight Pass; reduce the number of shows it produces annually in order to save money; or even shut down its operation until it is able to secure a source of money.
So, what does this mean for Mexican fighters and other Latin American fighters who have been dependent on the promotion for work?
The MMA business has, overall, been consolidating, and will likely continue to do so as sustainability has been an issue for most promoters.
That means opportunities for fighters to compete will dwindle. If a promoter like LUX scales down its frequency of events or shuts down, many fighters will be left without a home.
A reduction in the overall number of live MMA events could impact the size of purses paid to fighters when they fight.
Without as much competition, promoters will see an opportunity to save money by reducing pay to professional fighters.
The domino effect may be underway in the MMA economy, but Fajador.com will be monitoring the situation and will keep our readers informed as it develops.
