With his contracts at Vox Media and Spotify having expired, Ariel Helwani is officially on the move.
Taking to social media on Tuesday, the longtime MMA insider officially announced he’s partnering with Yahoo Sports, with whom he’ll launch a new MMA vertical called Uncrowned , as well as a new show, The Ariel Helwani Show .
“I am so excited to announce that I have partnered with Yahoo Sports. I am now a part of the Yahoo Sports family,” Helwani said over the course of an 11-minute-plus video. “This is a very, very exciting moment for me. This is a huge moment for me because I’ve talked to a lot of different entities, a lot of different outlets over the last few weeks and month.
“And a lot of people presented very generous, very thoughtful offers, listened to what I wanted, listened to what I wanted to do, listened to who I wanted to bring with me. It was a tough decision. But ultimately, every time I went back to it, Yahoo was. And they met every single thing that I asked for, that I wanted, and then some.
“I love this new era of Yahoo Sports. This isn’t your old grandaddy’s Yahoo Sports. This a brand new era.”
Helwani proceeded to note his previous ties to Yahoo Sports president Ryan Spoon , who he worked with at ESPN. He also emphasized the “partnership” aspect of his new deal, in which he’ll have ownership of his content, including his new show.
“I have long admired the likes of Howard Stern, Pat McAfee, Dan Le Batard, Rich Eisen, Dan Patrick, for many, many years,” he said. “These are the people I look up to. And they’ve built what I dream of building. And what they all have in common, among other things, is that they own their show, they own their content. And this is what I wanted… I want one home. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to leave and I want to own the content. So in this deal with Yahoo, I own the content.”
Considering his status as the preeminent MMA insider, such a deal certainly makes sense, as it prevents a future scenario in which he has to abandon a show he was the driving force behind building as was the case with Vox’s The MMA Hour . As for Yahoo, it will be interesting to see if the outlet takes a similar approach to help attract media figures in other sports moving forward, as the McAfee model is clearly an appealing one for such talents.
[ Ariel Helwani on X ]
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