Like him or not, Dana White helping sell the UFC at over $4 billion and making it a part of TKO Group Holdings alongside WWE is one of the most remarkable business feats ever. He, along with his friends Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, purchased the UFC for $2 million in 2001.
The early 2000s were when when the company's reputation was at an all-time low, and there were heavy losses due to it being banned from pay-per-view and TV networks.
However, White's vision regarding this product, which was a far-fetched dream back then, now needs no introduction. UFC is the biggest MMA promotion in the world by far with a valuation of $11.3 billion in 2025. This has come after it survived several highs and lows for more than three decades.
In an interview with TodayShowAustralia ahead of UFC 312 in Sydney, White looked back at the time when he was close to folding the UFC for good.
Oh, yeah, in the early days when we were just getting started, there’s no doubt about it, and then when you run a business and stuff happens every day that you don't see coming and that you got to deal with. Even when we were strong, I mean we were sold in 16 and I want to say that it was probably 14, where like we had a whole year, every main event fell off with an injury and we had to deal with that. But the more bad c**p that gets thrown at you, the better you become.
In another interview with Forbes, White and Lorenzo Fertitta shared the exact details of the day they nearly sold the UFC. As per Lorenzo, $30 million was sunk into running the business and because there were no returns, they weren't left with many options.
Talking about it, Lorenzo says:
Now people look back and they say, Oh! the UFC was overnight success and no, it wasn't. Like, there were at least five years there, that were very difficult. We got to the point where we were just losing money, year after year, every event we were losing money and at the same time, fighters wanted to make more money, managers wanted more money. Everybody wanted wanted wanted.
White, who was running the business as the CEO, describes this time similarly:
So, one day, I was at the office and Lorenzo called me and he's like, ‘I can't keep doing this. Me and my brother can't keep funding this thing. It's getting bad so I need you to go out and see what you could sell this thing for’. I started making phone calls that day and at the end of the day I called him back and I said, ‘seven or eight million, could probably get seven or eight million for this thing in my opinion’.
Luckily, for the UFC owners, selling the promotion didn't feel like the best move at the time and they decided to keep running things for some time. For Lorenzo, it was as simple as this:
So, literally went home, woke up the next morning, and just felt like it's not the right thing to do.
White explained his anxiety at the time as well:
I thought it was over. And the next day, I'm driving to work and Lorenzo calls me and this is literally quote what he said, ‘f**k it, let's keep going’.
The UFC, as we know it, wasn't sold during its dark ages and thanks to TUF Season 1, the boom finally happened and MMA is now one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Although the promotion's monopoly in MMA is often criticized, it's rise to the top is still inspirational for countless people.