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Dana White Says UFC Nearly Doubled In Value From ESPN Deal

Dana White says the UFC is worth an insane amount of money now.

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Dana White says the UFC’s value is growing by leaps and bounds.

The world’s leading MMA promotion was sold for a then-record $4.2 billion in July 2016. Hollywood talent giants Endeavor (formerly WME-IMG) scooped up the UFC and proceeded to go about business in a new way.

Mixed results came when UFC titles seemingly became devalued in favor of so-called “money fights.” Slumping pay-per-view sales in 2017 and 2018 suggested the new strategy perhaps was not working well.

The UFC signed a lucrative television deal with ESPN set to begin next year. The deal is worth $1.5 billion a year over the next five years. Conor McGregor’s massive boxing match with Floyd Mayweather Jr. gave the UFC their reported biggest year ever, at least financially, in 2017.

A bevy of high-profile fights on the horizon has the UFC trending up. UFC President Dana White says the promotion has nearly doubled in value due to these factors. White said the UFC is worth $7 billion in a recent interview with motivational speaker Anthony Robbins (via MMA Junkie) :

“When you think about it we haven’t even scratched the surface yet of how big this thing can be. We just did a TV deal with ESPN for $1.5 billion for five years. Now the company is worth $7 billion.”

A New Era

There isn’t a ton of concrete evidence to back up White’s claim as of right now, because the promotion is only worth what someone is willing to pay.

The deal with ESPN will bring the UFC and MMA to the homes of millions of more customers. White has been criticized for becoming complacent in the UFC’s new era. He claimed he is still motivated to find new talent, however:

“Obviously this ESPN deal is going to be massive for us, expose us to millions of people just here in the U.S. that haven’t been exposed to the UFC. We’re going to continue to go into markets we haven’t been, we’re going to continue to find the best talent in the world. I love to find up-and-coming talent. I love to find the next guy or girl. Continue to build the sport. That’s it. That’s my focus. It’s not rocket science, it’s nothing crazy. Just continue to do what we do and get bigger and bigger.”

The UFC is certainly headed for greener pastures to close out 2018. Conor McGregor will return at October 6’s UFC 229. The fight is being billed as the biggest in UFC history and legitimately could be. Early indicators suggest it will be.

Fan favorites Nate Diaz and Brock Lesnar are also slated to return in the comings months. So the future is looking bright for the UFC. That should only be amplified by their debut on ESPN.

However, the promotion fared poorly most of this year without any major stars to boost their numbers. Stars like McGregor and Diaz will need to fight consistently in order to attain the level of value White claims they have.

That’s no easy task, as we’ve seen in recent years.

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Matt Mitrione Says UFC ‘Can’t Get Out Of Its Own Way’ With Fighter Relations

After years of fighting in both the UFC and Bellator, Matt “Meathead” Mitrione knows both sides of the top levels of mixed martial arts (MMA). The former professional football player has always been an outspoken voice in the sport, and it got him into trouble with the UFC at times. But that didn’t stop him […]

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After years of fighting in both the UFC and Bellator, Matt “Meathead” Mitrione knows both sides of the top levels of mixed martial arts (MMA).

The former professional football player has always been an outspoken voice in the sport, and it got him into trouble with the UFC at times. But that didn’t stop him from voicing his concerns about fighter pay and treatment in the UFC, topics that are at the forefront of the current era despite not much, if anything, being done about them by fighters from a collective bargaining standpoint.

The UFC, and especially controversial president Dana White, seem to make headlines with each passing day about how poorly they compensate and accommodate athletes. When you hear White call a current champion “full of s**t” on live television, it’s hard to argue otherwise.

And not surprisingly, Mitrione has how own take on the subject. Having fought for both major MMA promotions, “Meathead” discussed the issue on this week’s episode of The MMA Hour, adding that the UFC is getting in its own way in terms of fighter relations:

“Freedom and obviously the sponsorship dollars. So, I am happy, I mean I can always be happier (with sponsorship ), but I am happy. It’s good business. It’s just nice, man. The UFC can not get out of its own way. I think it’s pretty evident in what they do, their consistent missteps.

“How they handle their guys, the media, like not giving the show money to that cat who made weight. Stuff like that, little tiny things that are just another notch against. I feel like they are, not in a colossal nose dive, but I do not think they are in the right spot. I feel like what Mr. Coker does very casually is what he needs to do to bring fans, eyes over to Bellator. And I think the production is completely different over at Bellator. It’s a spectacle, he took a page out of old Japanese MMA and made it bananas.”

Coker has made an impact on Bellator, especially in terms of Mitrione’s career, as he knocked out all-time legend Fedor Emelianenko last year in their cage.

But claiming he’s made it ‘bananas’ may be a bit of hyperbole meant to build up his new employer, because Bellator, like the UFC, isn’t blowing the roof off in terms of overall ratings during the last couple of MMA-slogged years.

That’s a moot point, however, and overall it seems that the fighters still in the UFC are reaching a breaking point in terms of pay and treatment. If they can eve get organized and do something about it remains to be seen.

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Dana White on UFC in WME-IMG Era: ‘F*ck Yeah, We Delivered’

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White insists that the promotion is in a great financial state after being purchased by WME-IMG. Much has been made over the UFC since the Fertitta Brothers sold the promotion. Many have said that out…

Five Ways The UFC Is Becoming More Like WWE

When UFC 1 took place on a cold November night back in 1993 from McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado, it ignited the beginning of the world’s foremost mixed martial arts (MMA) competition, fueled by the concept of the best fighting the best to call themselves champion. It may have been extremely rough around the edges in […]

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It may have been extremely rough around the edges in those ‘dark’ days where the sport having few rules and regulation had it on the precipice of doom, but the opposite is very much true today. After the Fertitta brothers along with Dana White purchased the UFC for a paltry sum and turned it into a legitimately regulated competition watched on pay-per-view the world over, the UFC exploded into a global brand that put shows on nearly every weekend.

When its popularity peaked in 2016 on the heels of the Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz rivalry, the Fertitta brothers saw an opportunity to cash in, and cash in they did. Selling the UFC to Hollywood talent giant WME-IMG (now Endeavor) for a then-record $4.2 billion, one of the biggest franchise sales in sports (of any kind) history was complete. But all was not rosy. This year has seen the advent of some truly horrific pay-per-view and television ratings, with UFC 213, UFC 215, and UFC 216 ranking as three of the lowest-watched PPVs ever, while December’s TUF 26 Finale was the least-watched UFC live event of all-time.

So while it was undoubtedly rough around the edges in its infancy, the UFC is dealing with a whole different set of problems heading into 2018, and many would argue that the UFC owners don’t exactly know what they’re doing. A growing sense is that the Hollywood agency is now trying to book the more mainstream, over-the-top spectacle fights rather than those that clearly have a more legitimate meaning based on meritocracy.

It’s lead to a steady stream of criticism that the UFC is becoming more like pro-wrestling and their WWE counterpart, obviously not the most endearing of words from fight fans. The argument, unfortunately, cannot be totally denied. Let’s take a look at the reasons why:

5.) Titles Mean Next To Nothing:

Endeavor has to be commended for finally getting the middleweight division moving in the right direction by booking Robert Whittaker vs. Luke Rockhold for UFC 221, but there is one weight class that is an absolute mess in the UFC.

It’s obviously Conor McGregor’s held-hostage lightweight division, where “The Notorious” fought once and won the belt way back at UFC 205 in November 2016 before leaving to box – and lose – to Floyd Mayweather for the entirety of 2017. McGregor made the record-setting payday he was always looking for and can’t be blamed for doing it, but the fact remains the 155-pound landscape, which is still one of the most talented in MMA, has no clarity whatsoever at the current moment.

An interim belt was given to Tony Ferguson at October’s UFC 216, but without a path to a unification bout with McGregor, he opted to have elbow surgery, leaving not one but two champions on the sidelines with no real news about a return. Take into account the middleweight situation as well, where Michael Bisping was allowed to avoid the top 10 contenders by facing a retiring No. 14 Dan Henderson and an unretiring Georges St-Pierre, who had never even fought in the division. St-Pierre won and vacated the belt hardly a month later.

Interim titles are also created around much more frequently, making them seem more like the WWE titles that are handed over and won back on a never-ending cycle.

Because of these occurrences, UFC titles seem like little more than gold belts to be flaunted after a win rather than symbols of true MMA supremacy to be defended with pride.

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Five Ways The UFC Is Becoming More Like WWE

The post Five Ways The UFC Is Becoming More Like WWE appeared first on LowKickMMA.com.

5.) Titles Mean Next To Nothing:

Interim titles are also created around much more frequently, making them seem more like the WWE titles that are handed over and won back on a never-ending cycle.

Because of these occurrences, UFC titles seem like little more than gold belts to be flaunted after a win rather than symbols of true MMA supremacy to be defended with pride.

The post Five Ways The UFC Is Becoming More Like WWE appeared first on LowKickMMA.com.

Dana White Disputes Claims, Says He’s ‘Running’ Mayweather-McGregor Negotiations

Last night, a report surfaced from the LA Times indicating that UFC President Dana White was no longer involved in negotiations for a potential boxing match between former pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather and UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor. The report also said that the bout is being targeted for this fall. Last month, White made […]

The post Dana White Disputes Claims, Says He’s ‘Running’ Mayweather-McGregor Negotiations appeared first on LowKickMMA.com.

Last night, a report surfaced from the LA Times indicating that UFC President Dana White was no longer involved in negotiations for a potential boxing match between former pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather and UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor. The report also said that the bout is being targeted for this fall.

Last month, White made headlines when he revealed that he had come to an agreement with McGregor regarding their side of the deal and that all he had left to do was strike a deal with Mayweather and advisor Al Haymon.

With that in mind, White recently disputed the report from the LA Times, saying that he is ‘running’ the negotiations between Mayweather and McGregor:

“We live in a world right now where you can’t believe anything that you read,” White said to TMZ. “Who else would be running the Mayweather-McGregor deal than me?”

“I’ve had a couple of bad days back-to-back with bad, ‘legitimate news stories’ with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and now the LA Times. Trust me, I’m running the Mayweather-McGregor deal.”

When presented with the idea that WME-IMG, a talent agency who purchased the UFC for a record-setting $4.2 billion last year, could be working on the deal, White responded with the following:

“What does WME know about making big fights?,” White added.

Either way, the fight appears to be closer towards becoming a reality than it has ever been.

Mayweather has been out of action since Sept. 2015 when he scored a one-sided unanimous decision victory over Andre Berto, announcing his retirement after the bout. Earlier this year, however, “Money” said that he was coming out of retirement to fight McGregor.

The “Notorious” one, on the other hand, hasn’t competed since last November when he picked up a dominant knockout victory over Eddie Alvarez to become the promotion’s 155-pound champion.

What do you make of White’s recent claims?

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