Fighting for world dom

The UFC juggernaut arrives in New Zealand for the first time next Saturday night. Rick Maese meets the maverick businessman behind the violent but compelling phenomenon.

NEXT weekend’s UFC event in Auckland is all part of Dana White’s plan for world domination. White is the president of the powerful mixed martial arts organisation and feels a sense of ownership over every aspect of the company.

He built this entire fight circus, his face is the one at the front of the lucrative UFC brand – he’s on the TV broadcasts; he hosts the reality show; he runs the news conferences. Fighters will come and go. They’ll get too old and too slow. But White is the constant — the smiling, bald, profane beacon in the middle of it all.

White has nearly three million Twitter followers, and he’s engaged all day. For him, every interaction is a chance to remind people about the night’s pay-per-view show. He’s not a typical salesman and not like any other CEO.

According to research by Fox Sports, the major rights holder in the United States, more than three out of four men aged 18-34 say they’re fans of UFC. Seven in 10 viewers are men, and the UFC enjoys the youngest median age and the highest concentration of Hispanics among all major sports. Now the UFC can be seen in 147 countries, in 23 languages.

It just means White’s plan is well in motion: He wants to take over the world. ‘‘We’ve already passed the NFL globally,’’ White boasts .

‘‘In the United States, the NFL is just a beast. I mean, right now I would say the one we’re trying to outgrow globally would be soccer.’’

One key is treating every night like the UFC’s most important. That means building a card of competitive fights and making sure as many eyeballs as possible tune in.

‘‘Ninety percent of it is awareness,’’ White says. ‘‘People need to know it’s on. The more people we interact with, the more people know it’s on.’’

UFC launched in 1993 as a violent, bloody spectacle with no rules and no mercy. Hardcore fans loved it, but the growing popularity invited red tape and controversy.

‘‘You could see the handwriting on the wall,’’ said Art Davie, one of the UFC’s founders. ‘‘My big fear was that we would be banned completely. Politically, we were getting squeezed out.’’

Senator John McCain famously wrote a letter to all 50 governors in 1997, denouncing the sport as ‘‘human cockfighting’’. Suddenly, the UFC couldn’t book an arena, couldn’t land a good TV spot and was selling off its assets to stay afloat.

While negotiating on behalf of his fighters, White learned the UFC was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

‘‘We bought the UFC when not only was it a bankrupt company that was going under, it had a horrible stigma attached to it,’’ White said.

‘‘This thing was so bad it was not allowed on pay-per-view. Porn was on pay-per-view, but the UFC was not allowed on pay-per-view.’’

The UFC placed a bet on reality

We bought the UFC when not only was company that was going under, it had a attached to it. This thing was so bad it w allowed on pay-per-view. Porn was on pa the UFC was not allowed on pay-per-view DANA WHITE

Front-man: Dana White presenting Chad Laprise with a trophy after his fight against Olivier Aubin-Mercier in April.