Video: How Invicta FC's Shannon Knapp ended up with a UFC Fight Pas deal

Although countless broadcast and streaming deals had been rumored, Invicta FC President Shannon Knapp said there’s a reason the all-female promotion ultimately partnered up with UFC Fight Pass.

The UFC’s digital streaming service is now the live-event home for Invicta FC promotion, which launched in 2012 and has hosted seven shows with many of the sport’s top female competitors.

The organization hasn’t yet made its 2014 debut, but after payment-processing and video-streaming issues during its previous online pay-per-view broadcasts, Knapp knew it was time to find a solution. Ultimately, that led her to the UFC and UFC Fight Pass.

“I’ve always had a great relationship with the UFC,” Knapp, who previously worked for the industry-leader, recently told MMAjunkie Radio. “And let’s face it: There’s a best of the best out there.

“For me, to have this opportunity to have their marketing machine behind us, to have a home for the long-term, to be in control of our own promotion and things like this, those are all the deciding factors.”

Invicta FC has sent many fighters to the UFC’s first female division, the 135-pound bantamweights, and most of the organization’s top 115-pounders will be featured on “The Ultimate Fighter 20” later this year, when the cast exclusively features female strawweights. With the new streaming deal, Knapp expects even more Invicta FC fighters to graduate to the sport’s biggest promotion.

“I have always mirrored how I run my business as close as I possibly could to the professionalism that they display,” she said. “I just felt like this was the best thing to help move it forward. I think all the athletes are extremely excited.”

Check out the full conversation above.

And for more on Invicta FC’s and the UFC’s upcoming schedules, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.