New UFC owners face balancing act
Sport needs to keep edge, appeal while still growing
As news of the biggest financial transaction in sports history bounced around the globe, Dana White wasted no time in reminding everyone he is still in charge.
White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, will stay on with the company after its blockbuster $4 billion sale to a consortium headed by Hollywood talent agency WME-IMG and a collection of private equity firms. His business partners, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, sold their 40.5% stakes. White offloaded his 9% share but bought back in for an undisclosed sum.
On Monday morning, 36 hours after UFC 200, the biggest show in his company’s history, White sent out a link on Twitter. Nothing the promoter does is ever accidental, and certainly not at a time like this.
The link was for his online video series, Lookin’ For a Fight. In the latest episode, White tries his hand at stand-up comedy, making doughnuts, eating vegan Bolognese, signing a new bantamweight and dropping eight F-bombs in the first four minutes. The message was clear. White is still here, still uncompromising, still as rough around the edges as when he bought into the UFC in 2001 and still a passionate believer that fight sports are the future.
Having White at the helm as the UFC enters a new era will help allay fears from the fans that things are about to get too corporate. He has always prioritized entertainment and value for money, and retaining him as a figurehead is a smart move. Of course, it is possible he would not have given the green light to a sale if that was not part of the contract.
Yet it is a time for new ideas, too. The global aspect of the UFC’s potential is what appeals to WME-IMG, and it eagerly mentioned as such in its first comments.
Much of what has played out over the last year was to increase the UFC’s attractiveness to investors. Events were staged around the globe, including in Australia, Japan, Croatia, Brazil, Netherlands and elsewhere, to make the point that this is not just an American product with a parochial core audience.
A companywide apparel deal with Reebok was signed, another move that pushed the sport to being more closely intertwined with the mainstream.
In the end, the efforts worked. The $4 billion sale price is staggering and enough for the Fertittas to invest in another pursuit, such as an NFL team, which White said as recently as May is of keen interest to the brothers.
In return the investors are getting a product that is largely built on its rabid fan base. Mixed martial arts is as much a cult as it is a sport, its supporters remarkably passionate and fiercely engaged. They feel they are part of the show, which is perhaps how sports should be after all.
Will it change? The organization has always had an underground, backstreet, irreverent feel to it. Billion-dollar sums tend to erase that kind of perception, and the new UFC will need to tread the line between profit and popularity.
It is a line that the outgoing majority owners worked out how to navigate, to their ultimate benefit.