The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) recently secured a $1.5 billion deal with sports broadcaster ESPN. Now UFC President Dana White has come forward with a few words on what the deal means for the sport of mixed martial arts.
Speaking to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Dana White offered his thoughts on the matter.
“This is a town with some serious FOMO. You know what FOMO is? It means, Fear Of Missing Out. The FOMO in this town is through the roof.”
“If you didn’t jump into the whole Golden Knights thing at the start, you couldn’t get a ticket by the time they made the playoffs. People are saying, ‘I’m not going to let that happen to me when the Raiders come.’”
“The Golden Knights are much like the UFC in the sense that, when the UFC started in Las Vegas, there were not a lot of believers. A hockey team in Vegas? Come on. It’s not a sports town. People won’t show up for it.’ But the UFC was the city’s original sports team, and we heard a lot of that, too.”
“Early on, it was hard to get good talent to move to Las Vegas. We built a huge facility, but all the production guys and sales guys, all wanted to be in L.A. and New York. …The landscape has changed. Now everyone wants to come to Las Vegas.”
“The deal with ESPN will take the sport to the next level. We’re becoming a global brand, and we’re able to deliver the sport to different countries — Russia, China and Brazil. We’re going to different countries to put on the biggest fights in the world.”
