The UFC, in all its glory today, owes a lot of its success to the leadership of Dana White. In 2001, White suggested that his friends Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta acquire the struggling UFC, as its incumbent owners were on the verge of bankruptcy. They reached a $2 million agreement, but that was just the beginning of the graft for White and the Fertittas.
The UFC initially struggled to gain popularity. It began to develop into a successful business following the widespread attention brought by The Ultimate Fighter in 2005. Here onward, the UFC grew exponentially before eventually sale to Endeavor in 2016 for just over $4 billion. The remaining shareholders from Zuffa, the Fertittas’ company, were bought out by Endeavor for a further $1.7 billion in 2021.
Currently, the UFC broadcasts in 165 countries and territories, totalling 1.1 billion households worldwide. Rather interestingly, the UFC maintains an extremely high concentration of millennial viewers. At 40%, the 18-34 age group compares heavier to the likes of NFL (34%), NBA (28%), and MLB (17%).
While the UFC is pleased to be consistently attracting younger demographics – the hardest audiences to crack – their presence brings with it an all too prevalent problem in the world of PPV sports broadcasting, as White highlights.
In a 2022 episode of Impaulsive with Jake Paul, White revealed how far the UFC was willing to go to stamp out the piracy problem that continues to hinder the promotion today. Referencing the UFC’s strong millennial viewership, a generation that Paul belongs to, White lightheartedly pointed out how millennials and young people are the source of the issue.
“Your demographic are the pirates, man,” laughed White. “It’s true, though. We’ve taken a hard stance against piracy. We spend millions of dollars a year battling it.”
Responding to Logan’s question as to whether technological advancements will help ease the issue, White wasn’t optimistic.
“I think the kids are way ahead of it. You have to be persistent and you really have to go after people. We caught a lot of people and prosecuted a lot of people for it. It’s a whole another f**king ball game. Guys calling me up crying, begging me not to do it. These were guys that were doing it in bars.”
Dana White: Bar owner threatened to shoot me following piracy hard line
While Dana White sees his no-nonsense piracy policy as essential for the UFC’s continued existence, there was one disgruntled pirate who failed to see his perspective.
“Memphis, Tennessee. We were looking for a fight and we were doing this wrestling thing. And apparently, this guy on that street, I put his bar out of business,” revealed White. “And they were threatening, that if I walked out they were gonna shoot me.”
White’s stance on piracy continues to be a source of discussion, a couple of years on from the Logan Paul interview. White reiterated his aggressive approach to ironing out piracy last September following comments made by Saudi boxing chief Turki Alalshikh.
Alalshikh’s proposed a compromise that would see his promotions lowering PPV prices to make them financially more accessible. While Alalshikh seems more open to negotiating with pirates, it seems unlikely that White will follow Riyadh Season’s lead anytime soon.
