The meet and greet was at UFC 306 at the Sphere in Las Vegas nearly a year ago. In the luxury box of TKO Holdings, which owns UFC and WWE, were media luminaries: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Disney’s Bob Iger and the future leader of Paramount, David Ellison, CEO of Skydance.

As these shifts take place, the media industry is about to go through a major test: how many people are willing to pay for a lot of — but not all — the sports content they want to watch.

For years, the UFC Apex has been a polarizing venue. At the same time, the UFC’s usage of the Apex in a post-quarantine world has faced relentless criticism as a downgrade from packed arenas. Fighters note its lack of crowd energy,