Sean Sheehan 
The news every UFC fan in Ireland and the UK has been waiting for emerged today as the UFC announced that BT Sports will continue to broadcast live events going forward.
https://twitter.com/jselliott09/status/758211333498216452?s=09
For months, there was speculation that BSKYB could be interested in attaining the rights having lost champions league football and other smaller rights to BT. But that did not materialise.
Irish customers can access BT Sport through SKY by signing up with eir (formally Setanta) on a monthly or yearly subscription. Alternatively, Eir are offering the BT package for free (not really free, considering you have to pay money or you won’t get it) as part of their broadband package. While Virgin dropped the BT package recently.
.@VirginMediaIE – 30 days written notice to cancel contract, too folks. I'm sure many will with no BT Sport #ufc pic.twitter.com/PVtmKHu8Z8
— Niall McGrath (@niallmcgrath4) July 27, 2016
In an official press release James Elliott, General Manager and Vice President UFC EMEA, said: “There is no doubt that our initial partnership with BT Sport placed UFC and the sport of MMA in front of an engaged sports audience, and helped to grow the sport in the UK & Ireland. This renewal is a signal from both organisations that there is clearly more to come and that BT Sport provides the perfect platform on which to continue to grow the sport of MMA and UFC. The potential for growth for both organisations is huge and we are delighted to be continuing our partnership and to building something special.”
And Simon Green, Head of BT Sport said “UFC were one of the first partners that we announced back in 2013 when we launched BT Sport. Since then we have both come a long way and I’m very happy to announce today that we will continue to grow the sport with even more exclusive UFC action live on BT Sport.”
First up on BT Sport as part of the new era is UFC 201 as Robbie Lawler defends his welterweight belt against Tyron Woodley this weekend.
