Boxing and all professional sports is forever changed with the Jake Paul ESPN deal.
ESPN are by far the worldwide leader in sports and sports by some margin.
The social contract for professional sports has been disrupted entirely with them choosing Jake Paul as basically their main man and promoter for boxing moving forward.
After dumping and not renewing with Bob Arum last year.
Here’s what we know so far on the new deal — and some background as well for those new to boxing:
- MVP launched a dedicated women’s boxing platform called MVPW in late 2025.
- The multi-year agreement with ESPN was publicly confirmed in early 2026.
- ESPN becomes the U.S. broadcast home for MVPW events through 2028.
- The deal covers both linear ESPN cable channels and ESPN+ streaming.
- The first MVPW event (MVPW-01) is scheduled for April 5, 2026 in London.
- MVPW-01 headlines Caroline Dubois vs. Terri Harper and streams live on the ESPN app.
- MVPW-02 takes place April 17, 2026 at Madison Square Garden on linear ESPN.
- MVPW-02 features Alycia Baumgardner vs. Bo Mi Re Shin as the main event.
- MVPW-03 is set for May 30, 2026 in El Paso, Texas with Stephanie Han vs. Holly Holm II.
- MVP has signed a three-year strategic partnership with MSG Entertainment to host annual MVPW cards at Madison Square Garden.
- MVPW currently lists 43 fighters under contract: 16 world champions and 27 top-ranked contenders.
- The “W” is intentionally embedded in the MVP logo to signal women’s boxing as a core pillar.
- Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian founded MVP in 2021; it has promoted nearly 60 fighters overall.
- MVP has staged 30 live boxing events prior to the ESPN deal.
- The partnership completes MVP’s broadcast footprint, which already includes Netflix, DAZN, and Sky Sports.
- ESPN describes the deal as a way to reach both existing boxing fans and new audiences drawn to women’s sports.
- The agreement marks ESPN’s first major boxing commitment since the Top Rank contract ended in July 2025.
- No Top Rank-produced events are part of the new ESPN boxing slate announced alongside MVPW.
- The focus is exclusively on women’s bouts for the initial MVPW series under the ESPN deal.
- The partnership positions women’s combat sports as a growth driver for ESPN’s combat coverage moving forward.
This will go much further than all the above though.
This will also allow ESPN and Paul to sign some of the best men’s world champion and pound for pound boxers as well.
Welcome back properly ESPN to sport of boxing.
This Jake Paul ESPN and MVP partnership should be good.
Now with ESPN, DAZN, BBC, Sky Sports, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and a whole host of new countries governments around the world wanting to stage and put on boxing all the time, boxing cannot and won’t be stopped now.
The sport’s resurgence and return to worldwide prominence took a huge step worldwide with this.
