UFC's Dana White Chimes In on Changing PPV Start Times

"Yeah, we are going to start at 9 on the East Coast and 6 West Coast".

This was the answer to the question posed by AOL.com's Ariel Helwani on MMAFighting.com in reference to the start time of the upcoming Georges St-Pierre vs. Jake Shields Ultimate Fighting Championship event, UFC 129.

Dana White chimed in on the news of new start times for UFC broadcasts and where the decision came from.

According to Dana, the UFC has been conducting studies, polling fans at their events to gauge the response to the possibility of earlier start times and whether they wanted them.

"Everybody did. It makes sense. On a Saturday, if you can get the fight in early and still have time to go out or if you're not [normally] up until 1 am on the East Coast. People like it, so we are going to do it."

Dana went on to say that this change is permanent. The new broadcast start time change officially goes into effect immediately.

So the time change is starting on Saturday, April 30th with the upcoming UFC 129 St-Pierre vs. Shields card in Toronto and will continue from here on out. UFC fans in North America need to plan accordingly as all pay-per-view broadcasts will start a full hour earlier—again, 9 pm EST and 6 pm PST.

This will obviously have an effect on the international audience as well.

Elliott Saltares is a sports pundit, fan, and contributing writer for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on twitter @elliottsaltares.