America's Most Savage CEO: Dana White

when you hear the words Visionary and multi-billion Dollar Empire who comes to mind what if I tell you that the most overlooked entrepreneur of Our Generation might be this guy I don't give a [ __ ] in the last 20 years Dana White turned to bankrupt company into one of the biggest Sports promotion in the world and everybody's like wow that's the greatest investment in the history of mankind well let me tell you the rest of the story and you don't accomplish that without making a few enemies there's plenty of people that would like to assault me get in line some of them coming from unexpected places he's not um a good person he seems to have lost his character somewhere along the way standing in Dana's Shadow a few powerful men operate away from the spotlight turning what was once an illegal operation into the fastest growing sport of Our Generation someday everyone will talk about the UFC this is the sport of the Future Between political disasters drug scandals and encounters with the mafia if the rise of the UFC from its ashes is in one of America's greatest success stories it certainly is the most controversial one okay it starts when the UFC's dying at UFC 27. it was nothing that what we expected there was no energy in the crowd we walked in the arena you know 1 16 full there's nobody there I wanted to buy a program they didn't have a program I want to buy a t-shirt you can buy a t-shirt this man looks calm and collected but don't let it fool you he's a straight-up business Savage the name is Lorenzo Fertitta and if you really know the history of the fatiguez and what they've built and what they've done incredible business back he and his brother Frank Fertitta own Station Casinos which is the third or fourth largest gaming company in the country so I'm sitting at the fight with Dana and I'm going imagine if they did this and imagine if they did that this thing could be big either there's something really wrong with us or this business just isn't being run the right way and you can blame it on these guys Rory on Gracie are Davey and Bob marowitz founded the UFC in 1993 under semaphore Entertainment Group seg there was a quote from TV Guide after the first UFC this is the bloodiest most brutal spectacle in the history of mankind it was one of those things you kind of wanted to watch but you know didn't know if you should be it was basically old marketing by the the old owners just to make it sound crazy if seg made one key mistake it was pissing off the wrong American hero well eventually Senator John but it wasn't the beginning was human cockfighting it was I mean I've seen people repeatedly getting smashed in the face with a guy sitting on top of them that's not a sport he said what are you doing you can't go put on fights that aren't regulated by the athletic commission there was no referee there was nothing it was terrible the owner basically said trust me when I say this I've been in business for a long time you can't mess with the government tell the government you're not going to do what they want you to do see what happens McCain leads a campaign to band a UFC across the U.S he pressures cable companies to stop showing UFC events John McCants who ban Ultimate Fighting taking it too far when that happens Gracie and Davey ditch seg leaving Bob marowitz alone at the Helm of the UFC so now the cable companies wouldn't put him on pay-per-view the ATM machine was cut off check this out those are the revenues of the UFC per event from USC one to UFC 27. little de Bob no the two guys who would end up saving his ass were sitting right there at UFC 27 and one of them prepared his entire life for that moment I had a hardcore upbringing you know I was the broke kid my dad was an alcoholic and was never around and when he did show up you didn't want him around you know what I mean you know I come from a single mom who who worked hard and didn't have a lot of money so me and my sister were home a lot alone one of the things I think about growing up alone is you know there's a lot of stuff that you have to learn on your own he just had this great personality people were attracted to him they wanted to be his friend they like hanging out with them you went to school with Lorenzo you're right partner now me and Danny go way back to the time we're like 14 15 years old knew each other all through high school I got kicked out of high school a bunch of times I was just never a school guy I mean Dana has high school education and that's it I was a bouncer I did Paving I worked at the Four Seasons as a Bellman my mother used to tell me that I was going to be just like my father and not amount to anything and I was going to be pumping gas into my friend's cars you know my mom did a lot of [ __ ] like that and I'm not saying that that's what drove me but that that didn't hurt I always knew I wanted to be in the fight business half the battle in life is figuring out who you are and what you want to do for the rest of it I was literally staying in the lobby one day and I'm like what the hell am I doing here and I walked out the front door and one of my good friends who was the doorman says uh what are you doing I said I'm quitting he's like what what are you gonna do I said I want to be in the fight business he said that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life After High School you know kind of parted went our own ways I went off to college he went off and did what he did in Boston Dana moves from Vegas to Boston where he starts teaching boxing so I was involved in boxing then I had boxing gyms and it doesn't take long before trouble finds them one day I'm actually in there teaching a class and these guys literally walk right into the middle of the class and they're like hey we need to talk to you and I said I'm teaching a class here and they're like we need to talk to you outside they start asking me if they if I know who they are and I don't when he walked down the street the sidewalk shook we're talking about the notorious mobster James Whitey Bulger he was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's character in the movie The Departed Johnny Depp also played him in Black Mass the last thing I would do if I was planning to harm you was to warn you in advance give me three words that describe Whitey Bulger Stone Cold killer that's selfie where he did most of his crime he murdered people there he buried people there and he went to sleep there Whitey Bulger had a guy who worked under him and his name was Kevin weeks yeah they wanted 2 500 from me 21 years old you might as well ask me for 25 000 right I didn't have 2 500 bucks what do you do I ignored him I didn't do anything you know I tried to avoid him for a while and he can only avoid that [ __ ] for so long and oh I once went by and one day I got a call at my apartment the guy's like you go pull tomorrow at one and I said or what are you gonna find out what I said okay I hung up the phone picked it back up and called Delta I got a one-way ticket to Vegas Dana moves back to Vegas where he reconnects with Lorenzo Fertitta and at the time I was on the Nevada State athletic commission so we obviously had some common interest and we started taking Jiu Jitsu through that we started to meet a lot of the fighters and we were blown away by these guys I started to represent and manage Chuck the Iceman Liddell and uh Tito Ortiz and I got into this huge contract battle over Tito's contract with the old owner that's how Dana ends up sitting at a table with Bob marowitz we got him this contract battle over Tito Ortiz's contract I was talking about pay-per-view and he flipped out he says there is no pay-per-view there's no money and uh he freaks out and I was like holy [ __ ] this thing's in trouble they were going bankrupt we hung up I called Franklin Lorenzo Lorenzo I just heard that the UFC is going to be sold these guys are in big trouble they're losing money I think we can buy it so I called Bob literally cold called him and he was looking for somebody to put up a million dollars for 50 of the company I ended up calling back and just said look we'd be interested in doing the deal but we want to buy the whole thing and a month later we owned the company so the Fertitta Brothers create a parent company that owns the UFC they call it zuffa which means to fight in Italian zuffa's very first employee is Dana White they made me the president of the company and they gave me 10 my office was a broom closet with a telephone and when we started this thing everybody they had all these smart guys and all these Geniuses that came from Harvard and everywhere else hated this thing do you agree with Dana that MMA will one day be the biggest sport in the whole world I do I really do and I know that sounds crazy you want to be bigger than the NFL that better be hard well not on a global basis the NFL there's nothing bigger than the NFL it's huge and yet NFL Europe failed twice in India Cricket's huge I don't know about you but I don't give a [ __ ] about Cricket soccer is Big all over the world it's not that big here and the list goes on and on of sports that work in other countries and don't work in other countries the one thing that I believe worked would work everywhere is fighting I don't care what color you are what country you come from what language you speak fighting is in our DNA we get it and we like it we're human beings the challenges that Daniel had to take on to pull the UFC out of its misery would be seen by many as impossible people think I swear a lot now you should have heard me the first three years of this company first of all when they bought the USC all they got for 2 million was pretty much just a logo you bought the name and a old wooden octagon for two million dollars yeah and I think we had like uh 11 guys under contract he had sold everything off the DVD rights all the old library the video game rights the merchandise writes all the things that you need to build the brand were gone we didn't even own ufc.com ufc.com used to be user-friendly computers he's dealing with a sport that is banned on TV banned in Most states and banned International venues did not want the UFC this wasn't allowed on Pay-per-view porn is on pay-per-view our goal is to buy it and get it on free television people thought that that was insane UFC stars like Ken Shamrock or Mark Coleman are gone either to wrestling or to Japan where the UFC's biggest competitor Pride FC is killing it the only two companies in this world that matter at the UFC and pride in 2001 Pride was already filling up stadiums in Japan a country culturally much more accepting of mixed martial arts they have the best fighters in the world including the American ones and make no mistake about it the UFC is coming here to kick your ass hey guys if you like this video don't forget to subscribe to the channel I don't know if Pat really said that but if he did he has to be the dumbest [ __ ] on the planet I mean you know how stupid you have to be I'm right here Dana to even think something like that let alone say it publicly and act like you're serious um Pat really said that it's what holy [ __ ] we might have to send him out to the clinic here the brain Clinic get him check me out all you want I feel fantastic thanks to ag1 the sponsor of today's video now I drink ag1 every single morning or whenever I need to feel focused or energized like right now pulling an all-nighter editing this video that's right I need to stay on top of my game but I don't have the time to juggle with a dozen different bottles of supplements every day ag1 solves that problem for me it's a nutritional drink one scoop contains 75 different ingredients including vitamins minerals probiotics adaptogens superfoods it's all in there it's your daily multivitamin multi-mineral pre and probiotic immunity support and on top of that [Music] delicious ag-1 is even NSF certified for sports the gold standard for professional athletes but don't take my word for it ask Joe Rogan I love athletic greens as Dr Andrew huberman I've been taking athletic greens since 2012 and I've been drinking it since 2020 so just try it for yourself go to athleticgreens.com Patrick gaviar to get started on your order athletic greens is going to give you guys a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin D3 and K2 as well as five free travel packs with your first purchase thanks to athletic greens for sponsoring this video now back to it every day when I came in here it was war and that's literally what I did I'd say y'all on the phone [ __ ] you [ __ ] you Dana congratulations on your first show that's got to feel good thank you very much James you know I did I went to the bookstore and I bought books on marketing I bought books on finance I bought books on PR that was How I Learned you have to understand what my job is what my job is in this day and age I have to convince you to stay home on Saturday when you busting your ass to school all week working all the other things you got to do you probably want to go out and meet some girls or take your girl out to dinner or go to a movie I have to convince you to stay home on Saturday and pay 55 to watch my event Dana's number one priority is to legitimize and clean up the brand so it's perceived as an actual sport we want to make this the Super Bowl the Mixed Martial Arts so we did the exact opposite we ran toward regulation the USC starts by adopting a set of unified rules which give legitimacy to the sport and ammunition when negotiating with athletic commissions we met with California Nevada New York New Jersey and the list goes on and on and we went to these State athletic commissions and said this is a real sport these guys are real athletes I mean I had to fly to places and literally had to wait outside people's offices for them to come out and grab them they didn't want anything to do with the UFC what's your superpower there that I'm a Savage I I get out there and I will work I'll outwork anybody but Dana also puts a team on its feet well my name is Lawrence first of all I'm the Chief Operating Officer of the ultimating championship I'm responsible for pay-to-day operations of the company he also hires the executive director of the Nevada State athletic commission Mark Ratner it was a hard decision for me to make but it's pretty hard to tell Lorenzo and Dana know the senior vice president of government and Regulatory Affairs did I get that right that's exactly right yes sir and what does that title mean exactly it means I go around the states and countries to get the sport of MMA approved and to make sure that the absolute best fights are put on Joe Silva and Sean Shelby become the USC's official matchmakers I've been with UFC since about UFC 3. and I just had a good eye for it they also scout Talent if there's a fight on camera we've probably seen it between the two of us and you buy my fight for 55 you better be entertained in order to improve the production quality of all the events the UFC keeps all the TV production in-house so then we all had to dive in and learn about production the appointed veteran ESPN producer Bruce Gano as lead producer he also brings into the fold a certain Fear Factor hopes I'll be interviewing the fighters as they come out of the Octagon anything we find out you'll know you'll know I would make more money doing a weekend at a comedy club than I would do in the UFC and I did like 12 of them for free like the UFC didn't have any money and I said look just get me there get me my friend's tickets and I'll do it I'm a huge fan of ultimate fighting all mixed martial arts a ridiculous amount of money that goes into fueling all those efforts start to take their toll on the Fertitta Brothers we were burning cash we end up burning like 44 million dollars and this thing really isn't getting any traction yet Lorenzo called me one day I was in my office and he's like uh when do we pull the plug on this thing is this thing going to work I can't keep doing this to my family and blowing all my family's money on this thing man get out there and see what you can sell this thing for and I was like I called him back at the end of the day and I said maybe we can get five or six million for this thing the rental calls you the next day and it essentially says [ __ ] it he literally said okay so he literally says [ __ ] it [ __ ] it [ __ ] it let's keep going the UFC throws a Hail Mary attempt and takes a page out of professional wrestlings I've told people for years I worked for the UFC for like eight years now the only reason why professional wrestling does big uh buy rates on pay-per-view is because they have a weekly television show that acts like an infomercial for it we said we need to come up with a reality show literally me and my team went into my office at like eight o'clock at night and we bounced a zillion different concepts around and that's the one we we came up with so all these guys live in a house for those of you that don't know they're coached by two big stars in the UFC every time you fight and you lose you get eliminated it's about do you want to be a fighter anybody who says they don't I don't want you here and it would end with a finale two guys fight in the finale one guy becomes the open fighter and gets a contract with the UFC the idea is to use reality tv as a trojan horse to sneak MMA on cable TV but at the end of every episode there's a live fight you know what I mean there was a fight that would be on TV that was the last 10 million dollar investment the brothers were putting in this is it we're gonna give this thing a shot if it works good if it doesn't that's a wrap it's over so we're 44 million dollars in the hole and we're out trying to pitch this thing to television we were literally begging everybody to take a swim team who couldn't find anybody they're terrified to put this thing on that's the other thing in the television business nobody he has any balls we ultimately found the Viacom Spike Network calling themselves the men's Network it's perfect for us the network for men they can't deny this we give them the pitch they couldn't wait to get out of this meeting and they said they wouldn't pay us for the content so what we said is how about if we pay it pay for it and give it to you for free oh they like that idea a lot better we threw this thing on Spike TV with zero advertising and the thing goes like this takes off the ratings were through the roof but halfway through the season the president of Spike gets fired they have made all these promises to me and everything else all dead so we go through this whole season it's unbelievably successful and we honestly didn't know if we were gonna have a second season we go into the finale we have no deal nothing Kenny Florian fights a guy named Diego Sanchez they go out there and fight Diego Sanchez smokes him in like 40 seconds terrible we've got two hours of programming to fill and I'm like oh my God this is a nightmare but the savior Stefan Bonner and Forest Griffin so these two guys come out light heavyweights and they put on the sickest fight you have ever seen in your life and the numbers during the fight went just like this the place is going crazy people were stomping their feet and and it sounded like a train was going through the arena and at the end of the fight people were chanting one more round one more round we ended up giving both guys a UFC contract that night which made the place even go crazier I knew when that fight was over it didn't matter if we did another deal with Spike TV or didn't do another dude we did it we made it we were going somewhere yeah we literally got up out of our chairs walked out into the alley and cut the deal for season two we cut a new deal on a napkin I know that sounds dramatic but it's true that first season didn't happen I would not be sitting here right now it's the craziest story ever you literally couldn't write this [ __ ] after that success the UFC doubles down on Spike TV programming they create UFC Unleashed fight nights and countdowns also a video game UFC Undisputed in doing so they develop a self-sustaining feedback loop check this out you can see their strategy has four aspects attract convert immerse and extend you track people by airing content for free then you convert them to pay-per-view finally you throw more experiences and product their way it's always about feeding more and more people into that Loop so what the UFC ends up needing more than anything is content and somehow the mob comes to the rescue in Japan the rumor starts going around that Japanese Mafia the yakuzans are involved with pride FC they are using the organization to launder money by gambling on fights and fixing them once a cable companies learned that they cut all ties with the organization Pride FC practically goes back to open and spent of a year and guess who buys them the UFC jumps on the opportunity acquiring all their Fighters an entire library of content in the process the USC starts airing free fights the same nights that their competitors have pay-per-views so if you're the average mixed martial arts fan on a Saturday night would you rather pay to watch a second tier organization or just watch some of the best UFC and pride fights for free on TV that's how the UFC destroys competition is WC merging with UFC yes UFC has purchased Strikeforce is that true that is true when they buy them out they get even more content to add to their Library which they can air for free and drive more competition out of business it's exponential we've got a library of 20 000 hours of original content why did you go out and purchase directors we need more fights we need more fights more fights in 2011 one of Dana's biggest goal comes to fruition we ended up doing a huge deal with Fox this is is a really really big day this is what I always wanted what we have is a lot of content we needed to get our content out there and they spread our content across all their platforms Fox is the number one network in the in the country all those people out there that thought I was a lunatic 10 years ago when I said that this was going to be the biggest sport in the world still do some still do I know call it a coincidence but a few months after the fox deal ESPN comes after the UFC you ever heard John Skipper no John Skipper ran ESPN hates USC hates it hates it let's talk about Fox Sports okay so these guys have just launched we're happy we we like competition it's fun they release an outside the Lions piece which targets UFC's practices but more specifically fighter pay doesn't care about the sport ESPN hates the sport they won't even cover it they're dirty that they lie and they never really give you all the facts the pieces followed by an Anti-Trust lawsuit against the UFC the multi-billion dollar Anti-Trust lawsuit it's currently facing from former UFC fighters we filed this case in December of 2014 on behalf of a group of mixed martial arts fighters who fought for the UFC the government came after us and called us a monopoly I do believe they have a monopoly I don't know how anyone could think they don't the lawsuit claims the USC quote engaged in an illegal scheme to eliminate competition I mean anyone that starts to even be up and coming at all they buy them out or they drive them out that allows it to pay Fighters quote a fraction of what they would earn in a competitive Marketplace we're spending you know seven eight million dollars a year trying to defend ourselves from the government as Monopoly it works the government drops the case the UFC keeps on expanding there was a time when Marshall zlaznik was one of the most powerful people people in the UFC what is your job to find opportunities in the international market outside of the U.S and Canada Fighters are key when it comes to expansion in international markets they open up the door to the countries George Saint Pierre opens up Canada Michael Bisping opens up the UK we've added about 20 states in the last three years we're everywhere but New York and getting close and they've cleaned up their act enormously we've done fights in Australia all throughout Europe when Scandinavia Italy we're doing Poland this year to do the first event in the Middle East is very very thrilling two years ago we did one fight in Brazil last year we had three we'll do seven this year and nine next year we're very bullish on what India can be we just put on an event over in Macau it was the most successful event in the history of Macau we break the arena records with ticket sales it's usually us and the Rolling Stones Abu Dhabi now as a partner these guys are 10 Partners too Ireland those fans feel like you're neglecting them what's going on there yeah thank you very much Conor McGregor opens up Europe he's followed by Ronda Rousey who starts a female division Wei Zhang our Chinese world champion when she became a champion she ignited China and finally after eight years of negotiations Mark Ratner gets MMA legalized in the state of New York and when I when I heard the final vote tally that was the emotional moment for me congratulations on passing the bill uh it was a long time coming I think this really completes the journey for MMA an eight-year gestation period was that what that was that was exactly right and uh so this is the baby and now we'll uh we'll have the big uh the big the big coming out party November 12th the big moment for me was at the Garden when Connor is finding Eddie and the excitement and the crowd the energy that was the special night the fertittas were ready to get out and they sat me down and said we're going to sell this thing and I didn't believe what was going to happen at all you know these are my best friends we've done it together and I got a little went up into a hotel room and didn't come out for a few days wow didn't sleep didn't eat and Lorenzo had to come get me out of there Lorenzo looked at me and he says dude I'm not be happy for me and then I got it and sold it for 4.025 billions the transaction was the largest in sports history this is the man who buys a UFC Ari Emmanuel hint of Hollywood doing deals like this is what he does here's the catch to be able to buy the UFC Ari Emmanuel borrows 1.8 billion dollars when his company merges with UFC Holdings USC takes on 2.3 billion dollars of debt the interest amount to 98 million dollars per year our Fox deal is up and we're probably not going to end up doing another deal with Fox John Skipper's never ever gonna take the USA so we're we're in a real tough Place here's a shocker new details revealed about the resignation of the former president of ESPN John Skipper's cocaine dealer is gonna rat him out what what he says he resigned because his drug dealer tried to extort him so he has to step down from ESPN right at the time that we're trying to make a TV deal so UFC is going to be on ESPN yeah no more Fox no more that's done the UFC D on ESPN we just did a deal with ESPN for 1.5 billion dollars now the companies were seven billion dollars the deal requires the USC to put on 42 events per year in exchange for 750 million but then 2020 happens was the toughest thing I've ever had to navigate in the history of this company and if you look at where we came from that's actually saying something Endeavors Revenue plunges by 80 percent companies start laying off big percentage of the workforce you did not lay people off no we're four months into the year and the USC has only put on eight fights out of 42. Dana calls me up he said get me an island I said what he said get me an island fight Island now is that a clever name no is it the perfect name yes I have a really good relationship with the royal family in Abu Dhabi you gotta be ashamed of himself there's still a medical danger here Dana's way off him way wrong I wouldn't even tell the media where we were holding events because these scumbags would start calling and trying to get it shut down that allowed you to keep your support on the air when everything else was shut down right we're supposed to do 43 that year we did we did 42. we gained a lot of fans because there was nothing to gamble on so Sports better started betting on UFC when other people weren't playing our fan base grew 46 we're now one of the top four Sports in the United States the big four has changed exactly the big four has changed we've been doing the impossible since 2001. nothing is impossible if you're in business with me don't tell me no nobody in this building ever says no if you had one thing that you learned throughout your journey in building the UFC that you could pass along to the next Generations what would that be there's a lot of uh I tell young people now all the time I definitely tell my kids if you are even remotely a Savage you'll run these people over so it's all out there for the taking right now I just keep saying that there's no reason to be that mean and cruel to people all the time I actually like chaos yeah yeah you must if I don't have it I'll create it in my own personal dude I don't believe I've ever brought him up to behave like that I'm a Savage yeah I know and I was raised by a single mother is there something to that my mother used to tell me that I was going to be just like my father and not amount to anything I would love to see him change but to have my old Dana back for the small group of savages out there run these kids right over man run them all over yourself of course I do there are two sides to every story and on the other side of this one stand the USC Fighters and the main issue at hand fighter pay I covered the topic entirely in this video so make sure you check it out it's quite the perspective shift thanks for watching guys and take care

Channel: Patrick Gavia

Views: 4,380,034

Keywords: ufc, dana white, dana, white, dana white biography, ufc biography, ultimate fighting championship, mma, pride, conor mcgregor, george saint pierre, michael bisping, lorenzo fertitta, mixed martial arts, mma documentary, frank fertitta, fertitta brothers documentary, ufc controversy, ufc controversial moments, rise of the ufc, ufc bankruptcy

Id: X8-qnUyJSlc

Length: 28min 51sec (1731 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 31 2022