HD demands RISE - UFC takes it up.

On December 30th, on the biggest fight in the brief history of the burgeoning sport of mixed martial arts, Zuffa Entertainment (owner of Ultimate Fighting Championships) announced that it would begin broadcasting live UFC cards in HD on February 3rd, 2007.

This development is significant because it truly shows the demand of HD programming is at an all-time high. To put it in perspective: these future UFC shows that will be in HD will not be free. In fact, they will come at a premium price- $49.95, ten extra dollars than the standard broadcast.

Fans have demanded this for years, as many of them have been exposed to UFC in HD on a small-scale. UFC, like many companies, now film exclusively in high-definition, meaning all of the master tapes are hi-def. Since UFC had these tapes at their disposal, they took advantage of them by offering several popular fights (the most notable being the now-legendary clash between undefeated Diego Sanchez and judo master Karo Paryisan) on the Xbox 360 marketplace for download in HD quality. These downloads were highly successful, to the point where Zuffa finally gave into consumer demand and decided to run head-on into the HD fray.

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