Almost three years ago, UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) which is the biggest Mixed Martial Arts company in the world was sold by Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta to the WME-IMG for approximately $4 billion.
UFC which was founded in 1993 was purchased by White and Fertitta brother back in 2001 for a mere $2 Million. When the Fertitta brothers were searching for potential buyers, they had a very important condition which the buyers had to adhere if the promotion was to be sold and i.e for Dana White to still be a part of the promotion.
Dana White recently revealed that the Fertitta brothers turned down bids as high as $5 Billion. But they only sold the company to Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell because their management was the right fit for the UFC.
“The scariest part during the sale was everybody that came in that was making offers to buy the UFC, the one stipulation was that I had to stay. So then I’m like holy s—t,” White told the “Short Story Long” podcast. “The Fertitta brothers were like ‘listen man, you’ve got to stay’ and it’s not that I didn’t want to stay, who am I staying with is the question? Again a testament to the Fertittas, there were higher bidders than Ari. There was a company that was bidding $5 billion.
“I said I don’t give a f—k about the money but at the end of the day everybody gives a f—k about the money and the Fertitta’s absolutely cared about the money but they were cool enough and smart enough to realize that we need to match him up with somebody that it’s actually going to work with and Ari was the guy. Ari was absolutely the guy.”
Dana White said that this past three years, he has developed an incredible working relationship with Ari Emmanuel and even said that they have never had any arguments in the last three years and he recently also signed a contract to run the UFC.
“Ari is f—king awesome. He’s awesome. He couldn’t have been a better guy to be the guy to come in with me again,” White said. “You know how many arguments me and Ari have had in f—king almost the last four years? Zero. We’ve had zero. Zero arguments whatsoever.
“All the s—t with the banks, dealing with all the banks and all the s—t that’s involved now, Ari does all that. Cause that’s what Ari does and that’s what Ari is really good at. You know what him and the banks do? They let me do my thing. They stay out of the way and they let me run the business. It’s f—king great. It’s perfect.” (H/T – MMAFighting.com)
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