How did Dana and the Fertida Brothers turn UFC from a $2M to a $4 Billion behemoth?
The biggest name in MMA is not Conor Mcgregor, Khabib Nurmegamedow or Israel Adesanya – it is Dana White. The Millionnaire Fight mogul currently serves as the President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship better known as the UFC.
The UFC is by far the largest Fighting Promotion brand in the world is currently owned by Endeavor Group Holdings, an American Holding company for talent and media agencies.
Dana White was born in Connecticut but grew up in Boston. He picked up Boxing at the age of 17. He dropped out twice from College. He did a couple of jobs including working on roads, bouncer, a bellman and a Valet.
Then he quit Valet and started training kids Boxing. He got housewives, businessmen, etc in his basement. When he was 21, he got beaten up in a bar for 20 mins. He got hearing disease.
During one of the Boxing class he was demanded USD 25,000 by a Gang. He had to pack his bags and flee to Los Vegas in hours.
He continued Boxing training at Las Vegas . Bulls and Biser. Here Dana reunited with a childhood friend Lorenzo Fertida.
In Las Vegas the Fertida brothers and Dana attended a MMA event and Frank Fertita expressed interest in Jiu Jitsu. Dana arranged the Fighter to teach Jiu Jitsu to the Fertida brothers and they instantly fell in love with MMA.
Dana was managing Fighters, one of them got into a Fighter dispute and Dana got a chance to look into the UFC’s financials and understood the promotion was having financial difficulties.
He brought this upto the Fertida brothers showing them the promotion could be bought. Lorenzo called the owner who offered 50% of the Business for USD 1 Million. Lorenzo countered with USD 2 Million for 100% and the then owner accepted. The negotiations lasted a month.
But the owner had sold every other IP to other parties including the Domain name. Only the brand name UFC and a wooden floor was available for Dana and the Fertitta brothers.
Even though he bought the company, Dana who had 10% Equity as opposed to the 90% Equity enjoyed by the Fertitta brothers had to build the Business from the ground up.
He had to introduce rules and regulations to the game, by over the website domain and revamp it, buy other IP, look for Sponsors and so on. His biggest hurdle came when no media company came forward to broadcast the events. Please bear in mind that by this time most states in the US had banned MMA. The sport was considered to be the human version of cock fighting.
Finally got the TV rights to broadcast PPV.
Business was unprofitable and the UFC was now in USD 40 Million debt. Fertitta brothers were on the brink of giving up and asked Dana to look for a potential buyer and were willing to exit even at a loss. They got an offer between 5-7 Milion USD. Lorenzo had a change of heart and wanted to give UFC another crack.
Their big break came with the introduction of the Reality TV version of the UFC which they convinced Spike TV to broadcast. Spike TV only agreed if UFC took care of sponsorships, but there was zero sponsors so the UFC had to fill it up with their PPV cards.
The Ultimate Fighting championship was a massive success with more than 1 Million viewers, Spike TV bought Season 2 immediately.
7 years after their partnership with Spike TV they sold broadcasting rights to Fox which brought the UFC a revenue of USD 100 Million per month which was a huge win.
The final state to unban MMA was the state of New York. UFC 205 headlining the biggest name in MMA at that time Conor Mcgregor was held in that card and immediately after its resounding success the UFC was sold to a private investing company for USD 4 Billion making the Fertitta brother Billionnaires and giving Dana Millions.