Back in 2016, Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta sold Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to Hollywood mega-firm WME-IMG — now known as Endeavor — for a whopping $4 billion in what was the largest sales transaction in sports ever.
Since then, the promotion has continued to make moves in the industry, such as locking down a record-setting television deal with ESPN, changing its pay-per-view (PPV) purchase format, among other things.
In UFC’s latest entry to its “25 Years in Short” series, we get a glimpse of how the massive transaction went down, chronicling all of the events that went into the sale, including the Fertitta brother’s initial purchase of the company for $2 million.
From there, the piece documents other potential sales that fell through prior to Endeavor landing the unicorn that is UFC, including Dana White’s well-documented beef with Showtime, who was trying to purchase the organization.
In the end, Ari Emmanuel and Co. came through with the biggest offer and the rest, as they say, is history.