Bellator announces broadcast deal with FOX Sports Latin America

Bellator is expanding its presence in Latin America – under UFC partner FOX’s umbrella.

The Viacom-owned MMA promotion today announced an international broadcast deal with FOX Sports Latin America, which is distributed throughout 50 million homes in 19 Latin American countries, including Brazil.

Next month, FOX Sports Latin America will begin broadcasting past Bellator events, “Bellator 360? and other shoulder programming, according to a press release obtained by MMAjunkie.com.

Additionally, the deal calls for an increased live presence on the channel in 2015, when it will host 25 live events and “in-territory live events on FOX Sports and the online authenticated platform FOXSportsPlay.com.”

The partnership commences with FOX Sports Latin America’s broadcast of “Bellator MMA: Rampage vs. Ortiz,” (Bellator 106), which takes place Nov. 2 at Long Beach Arena in California. The event’s main-card airs domestically on pay-per-view following prelims on Spike TV.

“FOX Sports Latin America has been looking for the premier mixed martial arts organization to partner with, and Bellator is the perfect fit,” Carlos Martinez, president of FOX International Channels Latin America stated. “We are thrilled to make Bellator the widest distributed MMA promotion in Latin America and Brazil, reaching more than 50 million homes from day one.

“We are also very excited to be able to work as partners with Bellator to produce large scale Bellator events throughout Latin America and to produce reality shows in key territories. This partnership is a long term relationship that has virtually unlimited potential.”

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney said the partnership is another key component to the promotion’s international expansion.

“To have partnered with FOX Sports, Latin America’s largest and most powerful sports network is the perfect fit for Bellator in this incredibly vital region,” Rebney stated. “This is just the beginning of what Bellator and FOX Sports International will build into the largest worldwide alliance in combat sports history.”

Prior to today’s announcement, Bellator’s past involvement with FOX was centered on the domestic TV market. The promotion’s second season aired on FOX Sports Net.

The UFC in 2012 started a seven-year broadcast deal with the FOX family of networks, with programming that now airs on FOX, FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2, with the latter two cable networks supplanting FX and FUEL TV in August.

Bellator earlier this year with its eighth season started a deal with Spike TV, also owned by Viacom. Its live events air on Spike TV with prelims that stream on Spike.com. The Viacom-owned MTV2 played host to the promotion’s events in Season 7.

For more on “Bellator 106: Rampage vs. Tito” and the rest of the promotion’s upcoming schedule, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.