“$40 Million in the Hole” – Dana White Reveals How Joe Rogan Saved the UFC From Going Under

Joe Rogan and the UFC are a match made in heaven. The JRE podcast host, who once had dreams of being a martial artist as a teen, had to quit, as he didn’t see any future in his kickboxing and was afraid of long-term brain damage.

After residing in Texas, he transitioned into comedy and became successful as a stand-up comedian. Subsequently, he ventured into television as a sitcom actor and host of Fear Factor and eventually found immense success with the world’s most popular podcast. However, the thing nearest and dearest to his heart is his role as a UFC commentator and analyst. And UFC CEO Dana White revealed how Rogan was hired as a commentator at the UFC.

Dana White reveals Joe Rogan used to work at the UFC for free

In an interview on the ‘Games with Names’ YouTube channel, Dana White was asked about the story behind how Joe Rogan became a UFC commentator. White revealed that he caught a glimpse of Rogan, whom he knew as the host of Fear Factor, talking about the UFC and its fighters on the Wayans Show. White was impressed with Rogan and contacted the comedian. Later, he agreed.

In the interview, White stated, “I was like, ‘Man, this guy [Joe Rogan] knows what he’s talking about. He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s articulate.’ So I reached out to Rogan at that time. I think it was on the internet. I reached out to him, we started talking, and I asked him if he would like to work for us and be a commentator. So if you look at where the UFC was at that time, we were losing money like crazy.”

White revealed that after Zuffa LLC (which he had founded with his friends, the Fertitta brothers) bought the promotion in 2001. But Joe Rogan, a martial arts enthusiast, did the first few shows for free, which earned him White’s respect, and the two men are close personal friends to this day.

“We bought it for $2 million, which sounds like a great story now. [But] we ended up being like almost $40 million in the hole before we turned it around, but Joe Rogan did like the first 12 or 13 shows for free. He said, m ‘f**k yeah, I’ll come there and do it and sit in the best seats in the house and everything else.’ So Joe and I have been super close friends for a very long time I would do anything for Joe,” he added. Rogan himself has said that he would only work in the UFC so long as Dana White is in charge since he does not need the money he makes from it, especially after his latest deal with Spotify.

Rogan signs extension deal with Spotify

Joe Rogan signed a multi-year extension deal for his JRE Podcast with the streaming platform Spotify earlier this year. The Texas resident moved from YouTube to Spotify in 2020 and had reportedly inked a $200 million deal to exclusively stream full episodes of the podcast on Spotify.

This time around, however, the podcast will no longer be a Spotify exclusive and it will be available on other platforms such as YouTube, Apple Podcast, and X, potentially opening up very lucrative sources of revenue for the podcast host.

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According to unconfirmed reports, Joe Rogan will be paid $250 million following his new deal, along with getting a cut of the advertising revenue. Despite these mega-deals that have made Rogan a very wealthy man, the New Jersey native continues to work as a commentator at the UFC, doing which he actually loses money, quite simply for the love of the game.

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