UFC Partners With Meta For Live MMA Events To Be In Virtual Reality

It looks like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance at UFC Fight Night 211 wasn’t for nothing.

On Thursday, the UFC announced a partnership with Meta, which is a company that includes Facebook and Instagram and Oculus, a company that produces virtual reality hardware and software.

UFC Fight Pass will also now offer live and on-demand MMA events in virtual reality through Meta’s Horizon Worlds app, which runs through Oculus devices.

The first combat sports event to be featured on the Horizon Worlds app is Friday’s LFA 144. It will be the first combat sports event to do so.

According to the press release, viewers can see and interact with one another in real time “while enjoying unprecedented VR views of all the thrilling action in the LFA Octagon, including strikes, takedowns, grappling and more.”

More VR broadcasts on Fight Pass will be announced soon.

UFC strawweight Mackenzie Dern revealed to media ahead of her headliner that Zuckerberg and his cohorts were going to compose of all of that event’s live audience.

Credentialed media and the public were notified that the fight was going to be closed off to them for a “break,” UFC President Dana White said. He denied Dern’s claim, which turned out to be true in the end.