UFC president Dana White is one of the most successful businessmen in the combat sports industry, with a net worth of $500 million. White is one of the most significant figures who helped popularize MMA around the world. At present, it is Dana White who is the strongest pillar of the UFC. He has worked from his fingers to bones to build UFC into the world’s biggest MMA promotion. On several occasions, the UFC boss has mentioned the hardships he had to face while trying to build the organization.
In the initial days, White found it hard to convince the majority to accept “fighting” as a sport as they thought it was barbaric. However, with the right acumen, White knew how to make MMA popular. Dana White became the president of the UFC in 2001. Ever since then, White’s only aim has been to build the UFC into a multi-billion-dollar empire, and he has indeed been successful in doing so. He has many interesting tales related to the success story of the UFC, and here is one such story.
The success story of UFC
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A throwback video of Dana White talking about the success story of the UFC was uploaded on the YouTube channel of Grant Cardone. In the video, White said, “We bought this thing for 2 million right and I’m sure many of you know the story but for those of you that don’t. We sold four years ago for 4.025 billion. The guys, everybody that was coming in and bidding on the company, you know. The one deal breaker was if I left, so they all wanted me to stay and continue to run the business and I’m 50.”
Talking further, White added how much he loved to keep working after the company started to make such huge profits. He said. ” You know what am going to do, and listen, everybody dreams about vacations and retiring and I hate three-day weekends. Man, if go somewhere on vacation I can’t wait to get back to work. That’s how much I love this, so there’s no way that I was going to leave, anyway.“
A glimpse of the past
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Lorenzo Fertitta and his brother Frank Fertitta bought the UFC from Semaphore Entertainment Group in 2001. It was White who persuaded his childhood friend Lorenzo to buy the company. When the deal got confirmed, White became the president of the promotion. Back then, Dana White was working as the manager for Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell.
The UFC boss showed the courage to take on the responsibility of a failed company and raise it to a multi-billion-dollar empire. As White mentioned, they later sold the company to talent agency WME-IMG in 2016 for $4.025 billion. The agency is now called Endeavor, and it is the current parent company of the UFC.
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