The story
KOTC was founded in 1998 by Terry Trebilcock Jr. KOTC features mostly amateur as well as up and coming MMA stars and former mainstream combat fighters.
KOTC has promoted a majority of its events at Native American casinos throughout the United States. KOTC also promotes events in Canada, Australia & Japan. King of the Cage events are also broadcast on most national pay-per-view platforms.
In September 2007, Trebilcock Jr. sold KOTC to ProElite. Two years later, in July 2009, he reacquired 100% ownership of KOTC and simultaneously entered into a joint venture agreement with Mark Burnett Productions (Survivor, The Apprentice, The Celebrity Apprentice and The Contender) to begin the development of a reality television program. Bully Beatdown, a Burnett produced program, aired three seasons on MTV and featured several KOTC competitors.
On January 30, 2010, it was announced that KOTC would begin airing monthly shows on Mark Cuban's HDNet channel. The initial deal was for 36 events to air. The announcers included Michael Schiavello, Jason "Mayhem" Miller and Maria Kanellis. The most recent event on HDNet aired on September 17, 2010 with No Mercy. There has been no further news regarding King of the Cage events on the channel. Only 6 events aired from February 2010 to September 2010.
In November 2012, MAVTV struck a five-year deal with King of the Cage, taking exclusive North American rights to broadcast a new two-hour KOTC event every Wednesday; the promotion described the agreement as covering 260 events.
In March 2017 KOTC announced that it had signed fourteen women to exclusive multi-fight contracts, forming atomweight (105 lb) and strawweight (115 lb) divisions that it said would be capped at eight fighters each. The same announcement stated that the promotion had reached an agreement with the UFC under which its bouts would be made available on UFC Fight Pass following their initial MAVTV broadcast.
The promotion's Canadian branch, which staged 71 events, held its final card on June 16, 2017. KOTC has continued to promote regularly in the United States, largely at tribal casinos in Oregon, Idaho, Nevada and California, surpassing 600 events by 2026, and full seasons of its events are streamed free on demand through Pluto TV.
From Wikipedia’s article on King of the Cage, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4