UFC fans in the Middle East and North Africa can rejoice. The world’s number one mixed martial arts promotion is coming into your homes.

OSN, the premier pay-television operator in the Middle East, have reportedly agreed to a multi-year deal with the UFC that will grant it exclusive rights to the promotion in both North Africa and the Middle East.

The deal was first reported by Sportbusiness.com and later confirmed by Cage Pages.

With this new deal in place, it will ensure all OSN subscribers will have exclusive access to top UFC content that includes live events, shoulder programming and the hit reality series ‘The Ultimate Fighter’.

The new partnership will also see the launch of the promotion’s digital subscription service, UFC Fight Pass. The platform will allow the new subscribers access to the huge fight library, exclusive programming that includes ‘Dana White’s Lookin For A Fight’, as well as a selection of live events.

“UFC on OSN will be industry-defining, as, for the first time, we will produce localized Arabic content ‘for the region, from the region’ to give fans an unrivaled viewing experience.” Andy Warkman, the senior vice-president of sport and sports production at OSN, said.

OSN currently offers viewers and subscribers 157 channels, 71 HD versions and 2 on demand channels. It has a great mix of both local and international entertainment available for people from all walks of life. The promotion has spoken about extending their reach into Africa and this may be a great step in the right direction for the rest of Africa.

The inking of this new deal marks the first major signing since the UFC was purchased by WME-IMG in July last year for a reported $4bn.

Since the new ownership started, the UFC have been looking to extend current deals as well as ink new ones and with the announcement of the OSN deal, this may well be the start of a number of huge announcements to come in the following weeks.

As and when these new deals and partnerships are made official Cage Pages will have you covered every step of the way.