Jake Paul shares theory on why McGregor won’t return to UFC action this year

Jake Paul believes Conor McGregor vs Michael Chandler won’t happen until the UFC has signed a new television deal.

The window for the UFC to ink a new broadcast rights deal officially opens in January 2025, while talks are ongoing right now.

ESPN currently owns the rights to show the UFC’s content after signing a five-year deal with MMA‘s premier promotion, starting in 2019.

Mark Shapiro, the president of the UFC’s parent company, TKO Group Holdings, recently revealed that they are fielding offers from multiple bidders but prefer to stay with ESPN.

Ultimately, it will come down to whoever can offer the best possible deal and that’s where McGregor comes in.

The Irishman recently had his June fight date with Michael Chandler postponed until further notice after he pulled out of the long-awaited clash with a broken toe.

Both fighters have been pushing to get the contest re-booked for December, however, UFC boss Dana White insists it won’t happen until 2025.

Paul believes White’s reluctance to stage the fight this year is due to McGregor’s key role as a negotiation tactic in a new broadcast deal.

“For the people that don’t understand it and are saying, ‘Why is Conor not fighting’, so Conor has two fights left on his fight deal and the UFC is trying to renew their rights deal,” said Paul during the most recent episode of his BS w/Jake Paul podcast, which featured special guest Francis Ngannou.

“They license their content to platforms, which are the fights.

“So they are trying to negotiate with multiple people or they might renew their deal with ESPN.

“A part of that negotiation is ‘Hey we have Conor McGregor for two more fights’.

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“But if you were to fight now then that wouldn’t be part of the negotiation.

“The company would be like, ‘Oh, well you only have Conor for one fight.’

“So that is why Conor isn’t fighting right now and that is what they do with the fighters.

“If you sign the contract that you didn’t sign,” he added while pointing at Ngannou, who turned down a money-spinning UFC deal last year to trial free agency.

“If you win then you are locked in for three more fights and each contract is different, but you basically don’t want to win because then you are locked in for three more fights.

“And they have all these triggers where if you do something then this happens, or if you lose this happens and so you are basically owned and operated across the board.

“But what you did [Ngannou] is super historic because you chose to get paid less to be free and now it has worked out in your favour because you had two of the biggest boxing matches in the past couple of years [against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua].

“And I commend you so much for being the first fighter to do this and sign for the PFL where we value fighter’s rights and we pay them what they are worth.”