The UFC is in the first year of a rights deal with ESPN to broadcast fights on the network’s fledgling direct-to-consumer ESPN+ service and has built its own successful digital platform, UFC Fight Pass.
Speaking at the Hashtag Sports conference in New York City on Tuesday, UFC president Dana White cited a record 4.3 million pay-per-view buys of the 2017 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor boxing match, and said he believes technology will one day enable an event to be truly global.
“I always dream about a day where, if you put on the right fight in the right place with the right people, what’s your ceiling?” White said, adding: “Everyone can watch it at the same time on the same platform without having a million different television deals.”
To prepare for that future, the UFC recently opened up Apex, a 130,000-square-foot production studio in Las Vegas, complete with its own arena. White said the facility can accommodate pre- and post-match analysis shows as well as bouts featuring up-and-coming fighters. UFC Fight Pass recently doubled its offerings to more than 1,000 hours of live and exclusive programming.
“We can go live anywhere in the world,” he said. “We can do anything.”
White said, for example, he could stage a fight that could go live in primetime for an audience in Russia, then host a boxing match for viewers in another country a couple hours later, and then a jiu jitsu tournament for another audience soon after that.
“I see a day where I’m programming this building 24 hours with events,” White said.
Fighting, he argued, is the one sport that’s truly universal among all cultures, with little need for an explanation of rules or even in-language commentary. White said the league is building more UFC Performance Institutes around the world, including one in China that will be three times the size of the one in Las Vegas. At these Performance Institutes, the UFC is providing training facilities, nutrition, and sport science support for athletes in an effort to cultivate more talent.
White also hailed the success of the UFC’s deal with ESPN, noting that every facet of the business is up even though two of the sport’s recent superstars—McGregor and Ronda Rousey—are retired and will not fight in 2019.
“We all know ESPN is the biggest, baddest network in sports worldwide,” White said. “When you come from where I came from and you build an organization the way that I have, your dream is to eventually be on ESPN and be covered by ESPN. But you don’t realize how big and how powerful these guys really are until you’re in business with them.”
As an example, White detailed the UFC’s past. He and casino moguls Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta bought the league for $2 million in 2001. At first they had trouble getting media coverage—ultimate fighting was prohibited even on premium television.
“Porn was on pay-per-view,” White said, “but the UFC was not allowed.”
He said they went as much as $40 million in debt before the league’s fortunes reversed. WME–IMG acquired the UFC for $4 billion in 2016, and White said the company is worth even more now, likening its growth to a rocket ship. Streaming is the technology boosting its path upwards.