UFC CEO Dana White, TKO Executive Chairman of the Board Vince McMahon, TKO + Endeavor CEO Ariel … [+]
Not long ago, the UFC announced it would hold its first-ever event in Saudi Arabia in March 2024. That news came shortly after the UFC and the WWE merged under the publicly traded TKO banner. It turns out that TKO Group Holdings Executive Chair Vince McMahon helped UFC CEO Dana White land the deal with Saudi Arabia.
“It was Vince McMahon. It was 100% Vince McMahon,” White told Sports Business Journal. “He made every call. He didn’t make one move without picking up the phone and calling me and getting me in the loop, and seeing if I was cool with this and that. And he went from being, oddly enough, I don’t know why, an enemy (of UFC’s), to being an unbelievable, incredible partner.”
While McMahon was integral in helping the UFC land this deal, he was not always eager to give White and the UFC his blessing. Something White discussed on a recent episode of Donald Trump Jr.’s Triggered podcast (via MMA Mania).
“It’s been an interesting relationship with Vince McMahon,” said White. “I never saw Vince as competition, but I’m thinking Vince, in his heyday [with the WWE], he saw everyone as competition.
“He was one of those guys that would (expletive) stick it to me just to do it. We were about to do a deal with NBC, and it ends up we get to the one-yard line, and Vince has the final say of who can go on USA Network and who can’t if you’re a combat sport.
“Lorenzo [Former UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta] and I flew out to Connecticut, sat down with him, we do all the small talk, ‘We’re doing a deal with NBC.’
“Vince sits back like Vince sits. ‘We’re about to do this deal, we’re about to have fights on NBC and everything else, but you need to sign off on it.’
“Vince says, ‘Yeah, I’m not going to do that.’ We’re like, ‘Why?’ ‘Eh, I’m just not interested in it. I don’t like the idea of you guys being on USA Network.’
“The whole deal blows up. At the end of the day, it all worked out better. We ended up on FOX. That’s just one of ten times where Vince did it.”
The UFC on FOX deal lasted from 2011 through 2018. The UFC then struck a deal with ESPN that began in 2019. That deal runs through the end of 2024.
The UFC’s March event in Saudi Arabia will take place on March 2 at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, which hosted the October 2023 boxing matchup between former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou and WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. The UFC card will be a UFC Fight Night event. The card will be a part of Riyadh Season, a month’s long affair that attracts visitors from around the world.
