Rafael dos Anjos to face Eddie Alvarez on UFC Fight Pass streaming service

It was hardly a surprise on Friday when the UFC announced that lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos would return from a broken foot to defend his belt against Eddie Alvarez. The stunner was the announcement that the bout will be live streamed on UFC Fight Pass on July 7 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, two days before UFC 200.

The UFC has worked hard to beef up its digital subscription service since launching it amid much fanfare in late 2013.

Last year, it hired Eric Winter, a long-time Yahoo Sports executive, to run Fight Pass. I joined Yahoo Sports nine years ago this month and in 2007, Winter and I had many conversations about creating a streaming service on Yahoo Sports which I referred to as something akin to the iTunes store of the fight game.

It never happened, and never really came close to happening, but it was no shock when Winter left to take the UFC job because he'd always had interest in that sort of project.

When the UFC announced Fight Pass in 2013, I thought it was an outstanding idea, though I felt the early implementation needed work.

But it has since become a very reliable and seemingly popular service. The UFC is a private company and very tight with its information, and so things such as the number of subscribers who pay $9.99 a month for it are unknown. So, too, is the service's growth rate.

Since Winter's hire, though, the UFC has been aggressive in trying to upgrade Fight Pass. One of the first signs of Winter's influence was the live streaming card in December from the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas that featured Rose Namajunas and Paige VanZant. In February, it streamed a high-profile bout between Anderson Silva and Michael Bisping.

Putting a quality title fight like dos Anjos-Alvarez on FightPass is a sign of how seriously the UFC is taking this initiative.

Title fights previously have been the domain of pay-per-view, where the UFC can get the most money for them, or on network televion on Fox, where they can get the widest distribution.

FIght Pass is simply another form of pay-per-view, but because it is a regular charge on someone's credit card each month, it is different than a conventional pay-per-view. That is more of a impulse buy, just like walking past a store and seeing a pair of shoes that you like and just have to buy, even though you don't need them and didn't go there with the intention of purchasing them.

The monthly live streaming service is a recurring charge and one that will make a person think more carefully about. It's easy to forget about it and not take advantage of the service.

The UFC has worked to increase the value for Fight Pass subscribers by putting on more of its higher profile bouts as well as working deals with other promotions, such as Invicta, Victory and Titan, among many others, to live stream their events.

The question of whether dos Anjos and Alvarez benefit by appearing on Fight Pass rather than on conventional pay-per-view is difficult to answer. As a champion, dos Anjos would receive a cut of pay-per-view revenues. And a show like UFC 200 figures to be a blockbuster that could easily exceed 1 million sales.

Forgetting for a moment the question of upside, that means that as many as 4 million people will see the fighters on UFC 200 fight live, since the average is four persons viewing for every pay-per-view purchased. On the other hand, even if Fight Pass has a million monthly subscribers (And there is no indication it has that many), that doesn't mean that all of those subscribers will be watching live.

On pay-per-view, you know they are watching, since they theoretically paid the fee on the spot to watch live. On a subscription live streaming channel, you don't.

Having a title fight, particularly one that figures to be an entertaining match like dos Anjos-Alvarez, definitely is a benefit to the UFC. It can only help increase the exposure of its live streaming service and thus aid in adding subscribers who fork over the $10 each month. As UFC president Dana White has said, correctly, numerous times, live streaming is the future. Fights like this simply strengthen the portfolio and give it a better chance to be a long-term revenue producer.

For the fighters, though, only time will tell. When Fight Pass was first announced, many fighters were reluctant to appear on it because their sponsors wouldn't get the kind of exposure they would have either on network TV, cable TV or on pay-per-view.

Outside sponsors are no longer permitted since the UFC inked the Reebok deal, so it's less of an issue in regard to fighters appearing on Fight Pass (Though a large number of fighters are extremely unhappy with the Reebok sponsorship terms). They'll get the same amount of sponsorship dollars in this scenario no matter if it is live on Fox, on Fox Sports 1, on pay-per-view or on Fight Pass.

Whether they get the viewership, which is an opportunity to create fans, when competing on a subscription-based streaming service can't be answered yet.

It's a no-brainer for the UFC to do this. It now has three fight cards in three days, all of which have title fights. On Thursday, July 7, dos Anjos defends the lightweight title against Alvarez. On Friday, July 8 on Fox Sports 1, strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk will defend her title against Claudia Gadhela on The Ultimate Fighter Finale.

And on Saturday, July 9 at UFC 200, the UFC has already announced that Miesha Tate will defend the women's bantamweight belt against Amanda Nunes and that Frankie Edgar and Jose Aldo will meet for the interim featherweight title. It would be no shock if the UFC also were to announce in the coming weeks that welterweight champion Robbie Lawler will defend his belt at UFC 200.

Hopefully, it will work out just as well for dos Anjos and Alvarez, as well as the other fighters on that show, as it appears it almost certainly will for the company itself.

Sadly, though, it's no guarantee.