It was a bad marriage after all. Exactly seven years after ESPN wrestled out FOX Sports to sign an ambitious five-year, $1.5 billion broadcasting rights deal with UFC, the duo seem eager to end their rocky relationship already. While the controversy had been brewing for a while, signs of distress finally came to the forefront last month when insiders signaled how the partners were “extremely upset” with each other. The issue? Both alleging that the other failed to hold their end of the bargain.

On one hand, there was Dana White‘s promotion who appeared ticked off with surmounting PPV issues, especially during the Magomed Ankalaev-Alex Pereira starrer UFC 313 bout. Several reports stated how users were unable to purchase the pay-per-view—the company’s key financial route—through ESPN+ or even watch the event. While the promotion did not comment on the disruption at the time, executives were reported to be “furious”. Later, ESPN addressed the issue with a press release, and also replayed the event for free at a later time (users with subscriptions were able to watch without a pay-per-view fee).

ESPN, on the other hand, wasn’t happy about the plummeting PPV numbers either, as opposed to what the promotion had assured its partner. “The UFC gets [paid] 300,000 pay-per-view buys as a ‘buy-in’ from ESPN. There’s no way that ESPN is getting 300,000 pay-per-view buys out of every pay-per-view, from what I was told…ESPN is frustrated because they’re not getting the pay-per-view buys that they had expected,” the New York Post’s Erich Richter had said. So, as things stand, UFC and ESPN’s exclusive window for negotiating the broadcast rights is done and dusted, and now, the promotion is in the market for other major networks to bid for their broadcasting rights. According to rumors, the UFC is targeting many online streaming services, including Netflix, with a $1 billion per year demand in the promotion’s next deal. But it seems like the streaming giants are playing coy.

There’s no doubt how big of a platform Netflix has proven to be. The first combat sports event they ever streamed, the Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson boxing match, broke many records, and even their server crashed due to the surge in concurrent users. So what’s stopping UFC from getting the same reception from the users on Netflix? Well, reports have come in, and it seems White will have to wait to get a deal with this streaming service because its CEO claims to be satisfied with their current arrangement. “Our live event strategy is unchanged … we remain really focused on the big, breakthrough events,” said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, as reported by famed MMA reporter Damon Martin. “Our audiences love them … live is a relatively small part of our content spend.” Well, this statement certainly put some cold water on the speculations.

While the Netflix brass appear to show no interest in the UFC broadcast rights, Damon Martin believes that they could change their position. As he vaguely recalled the streaming service taking a similar stance before signing the $5 billion deal with the WWE last year, he’s confident that Netflix will take the same route with Dana White’s promotion.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding where the UFC might end up viewing its product, Dana White has shared his thoughts about what the potential future holds. “When the window opens, we’ll obviously start talking to lots of different people and we’ll see what the options are out there. We’ve said this every time: There could be a time when we end up on several different networks like all other sports do,” he told as per MMAJunkie.

Having said that, the 55-year-old also had nothing but good things to say about his promotion’s outgoing partner…

Dana White heaps praise on ESPN amidst uncertainty with Netflix

Before the negotiation window for the UFC and ESPN closed this past Tuesday, Dana White gave his honest take on working with the network. Well, he seems to have made a lot of friends over there because he couldn’t stop telling how much he’s grown akin to them. “I like ESPN. I’ve said it many times,” the UFC CEO told MMA Junkie. While acknowledging the fact that things weren’t always going well between the UFC and ESPN, he appeared to have enjoyed the number of years working with them as partners, while talking about exploring other options after the window closes, which it has.

“We had a bit of a rocky start, which is normal in any relationship, but we’re in a great place with ESPN. Whether we re-sign with them or do not, I have nothing but great things to say about my time at ESPN,” Dana White added. “We do what works for the network – what do they want to do? Do they want to just put it on their air? Do they want to do pay-per-view? Do they want to put it behind a paywall? I don’t know any of those things. Tuesday, the window opens and we start talking to other networks, and we’ll get more into that.”

It is only a matter of time before we get to know where the UFC’s broadcasting rights go, but given that its sister promotion is already under the Netflix tree, it won’t be a surprise if they end up there, too. Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.