Dana White recounted how his refusal to compromise on production standards led to the collapse of significant deals with HBO and CBS, ultimately shaping UFC’s trajectory and contributing to its eventual sale to Endeavor for over $4 billion.
Dana White has been a part of many broadcast deals that brought UFC to where it is today. From the Spike TV breakthrough to the dalliance with FOX to the modern era with ESPN.
Those deals have all helped shape UFC into a multi-billion dollar behemoth. It’s poised to capitalize once the promotion’s current ESPN contract expires in 2025.
But look through the graveyards of any big business, and there are plenty of failed deals that never got off the ground for one reason or another. It’s no different for the MMA leader.
In a recent interview with FOX News, UFC CEO White recounted two big-money deals, in particular, that blew up at the eleventh hour. Why? Because of White’s unwillingness to compromise his goals.
“I don’t know if you know that, we did a deal with HBO,” White told One Nation. “We were going to put fights on HBO."
HBO came in and started going, ‘Yeah, we’re going to have to turn this music down.’ And I said, ‘No, no. You guys are not running our production and telling us what to do.’”
“We had already signed the deal. We were done."
So I literally called [former UFC CEO] Lorenzo [Fertitta] and said, ‘Yeah, we can’t do this deal.’ He’s like, ‘What do you mean we can’t do this deal? The deal is done. We have a deal.’
‘We’ve got to get out of this deal.’ And Ari [Emanuel] got us out of the HBO deal.”
“I believe that if we had let HBO do what they wanted to do, it would’ve hurt us and hurt our brand,” White added.
“Yeah, it would’ve made it stale and old and like boxing was.”
White further elaborated that some of his problems with HBO stemmed from his distaste for its production for the network’s famed boxing coverage.
For a time, HBO Boxing was considered the pinnacle platform for the sweet science. But White’s grievances extended even to some of the longtime commentators and analysts employed on the broadcasts.
“All of those guys were terrible. They were terrible."
At that time, HBO Boxing was the gold standard of the sport,” White said. “But nothing had really changed except [high-definition broadcasting]."
You know what I mean? They put on a good event; they put money into it. But I would have to mute the commentators all the time.
“I’m not buying this event to listen to you idiots," OK?
Who think you know all this stuff about boxing? And Larry Merchant jumping up and telling Floyd Mayweather if he was 30 years younger he’d kick his ass.
Yeah, no, you wouldn’t. And the amount of disrespect even thinking you could say that!
And [Jim] Lampley and all those other guys—they were clowns to me. And I use them as [an example of] what not to do when we [stage our events].
They’re buying this thing because of athletes like Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield—not because of commentators’ opinions.”
White then recounted how a potential deal with CBS he described as “a billion-dollar offer” blew up because of similar grievances.
UFC ultimately sold to talent agency Endeavor in 2016 for more than $4 billion—a record price tag at that time as one of sports history’s most expensive transactions.
But according to White? History may have played out differently if not for a messy conference call.
“So CBS tried coming in making us an offer at one point," right?
And I was in Hawaii on vacation,” White said. “Ironically enough—I’m usually late—but I was early on this call."
The Showtime guys were also early because they—well—I didn’t know they’d be there! Thought we were talking just with Les Moonves [former chairman/CEO CBS Corporation].
By then Les Moonves & Lorenzo got on; me & Showtime were fighting—literally—‘Eff you,’ back & forth!
Those guys heard us going at it; call ended right there.”
“So Lorenzo calls me immediately: ‘Guess we’re not doing CBS?’
I said: ‘Yeah… sorry.’ Got into it a bit; hated Showtime guys."
A bunch worked for UFC when starting out; thought their production sucked—terrible at what they did—and very vocal about it!
Then just so happens—we’re discussing CBS making billion-dollar offer… full-blown war by time Lorenzo & Les get on.”