add additional comments from LFA CEO Ed Soares.
It appears the Ultimate Fighting Championship is not the only
noteworthy MMA organization changing broadcast partners this
year.
On Thursday, Legacy Fighting Alliance announced that it would be linking up with Vice
TV for the entirety of 2026. Per the agreement, Vice TV will
broadcast 25 live events throughout the year, the first of which
LFA 224 on Jan. 16 in Prior Lake,
Minnesota.
For several years prior, the LFA operated with its events airing on
UFC Fight Pass. While the rumors that Fight Pass was disintegrating
proved unfounded, a few leagues did change their arrangements
including this company, as well as Unified MMA and Samourai MMA in
Canada. UAE Warriors and Lux Fight League both reportedly re-upped
their deal with UFC Fight Pass, with unconfirmed claims that the
UFC had changed the terms.
LFA is Back on Television
Before it worked with UFC Fight Pass, the LFA—a merged entity of
the now-defunct Resurrection Fighting Alliance and Legacy Fighting Championship leagues—ran its
events on the AXS TV network. According to the release, Vice TV
remains as part of roughly 40 million cable and subscription
packages in the U.S., and it appears that it also has a channel on
Brazilian television as well.
LFA CEO Ed Soares included a statement in the release, which
read:
“We are excited to announced an exciting new partnership with Vice
TV,” Soares wrote. “The LFA’s mission has always been to showcase
the sport’s top up-and-coming fighters in front of the widest
audience possible. Vice has built a loyal audience that values
authenticity and is known for its unfiltered, ground-level
storytelling. Together, this partnership will bring the untold
stories of the athletes shaping the future of the sport to a
national television audience, significantly increasing fighter
visibility.
Vice exec Josh Oakley was equally charged about this news, briefly
adding, “We are excited to work and partner with the LFA and give
MMA fans a new home to watch the next generation of elite fighters
compete live.”
In addition to the Jan. 16 show, the LFA currently has events on
Jan. 23, Feb. 6 and Feb. 27 on the books in Brasilia, Brazil;
Clarksville, Tennessee; and Ventura, California, respectively. It
is currently unclear if any events with the Professional Fighters League will collide with
the new LFA offerings. In November, the PFL
declared that it would air eight of its PFL MENA and PFL Africa
events in 2026 on Vice TV—it also stated that the two 2025 events
would run live on the Vice TV airwaves, but they were both
tape-delayed to run primetime stateside.
The New LFA Audience Reach is Poised to Quintuple
Following this announcement, Sherdog reached out to Soares, who
added to what he had written in the press release.
“We’ve actually been producing this event since before UFC Fight
Pass existed,” Soares noted. “Actually, we would have loved to
continue the partnership, but what happened is that under the new
contract, they wanted to own all the content we produce, so there
was no agreement. After all, we are a media company. But I
perfectly understood the demand; in their place, I would do the
same thing. But what matters is that in the end, nothing will
change for the fans and the fighters. Our relationship with the UFC
continues to be better than ever. We will hold our events and
provide fighters for them.”
The LFA chief continued, saying, “Before, we held the event and UFC
Fight Pass distributed it through their platform via partners
worldwide; now, we are negotiating this distribution in over 200
markets. In the U.S., for example, we closed a deal with Vice TV, a
cable channel that will bring LFA to 45 million homes in the U.S.
Besides that, we are still negotiating a digital streaming
partnership. In the end, counting TV and streaming, we will have at
least a five times larger audience in the U.S. Where haven’t yet
negotiated partners, such as in Brazil, the events will be
available on our YouTube channel.”
Getting a chance to highlight an upcoming event, Soares was beyond
thrilled the LFA was heading back to Brazil. LFA 225 on Jan. 23
will be capped off by an interim flyweight championship bout
pitting Marco
Degli against Luis
Aguiar.
“The Brasilia event also features [multiple-time] jiu-jitsu
champion Bia
Basilio making her MMA debut. These [LFA 224 and 225] are two
excellent cards to open the year,” he remarked. “Fans and fighters
can rest assured that nothing has changed; LFA will continue
stronger than ever in 2026.”
CEO @EdSoaresPro
announced today that the promotion has entered into an agreement
with @VICETV for
the exclusive linear broadcast rights for 2026 season with 25 live
events airing on the network.Read more: pic.twitter.com/uUL2ykFVwv
— LFA (@LFAfighting)
January 8, 2026