Brendan Schaub Didn’t Mince His Words When It Comes To Dana White
Earlier in March of this year promotion announced a new seven years of a deal with ESPN that will broadcast all upcoming PPV events on the ESPN+ service. That means fight fans will still have to buy the package at $59.99 along with their monthly subscription.
UFC 236 PPV went down last month, and it was streamed exclusively on ESPN+, and the worst thing is it did less than 100,000 PPV buys on box office. Considering MMA community witnessed some great fights, including Max Holloway vs. Dustin Poirier and Israel Adesanya vs. Kelvin Gastelum.
A former UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub recently voiced his opinion on his “Below The Belt” podcast about the recent decision of UFC to move the PPVs to ESPN+ which is drastically affecting the PPV numbers and fighters pay.
He even mentioned some big names like Brock Lesnar, who was planning to make a UFC come back to fight Daniel Cormier for the heavyweight strap however things fell sideways due to this deal, and even Conor Mcgregor’s absence also tells the same tale. It seems UFC is content being without their cash cows now. (h/t BJPenn)
“We heard Brock Lesnar turned down the deal,” Schaub said. “Conor… we haven’t heard anything from him. The UFC is content just being in cruise control because they have this reliable nut from ESPN. They’re set there, so they’re not willing to be bend over backwards to get a guy like Brock Lesnar anymore. They don’t need it. They don’t have to give Conor McGregor half the company to come back.
“Everyone wins, but the fighters are so f**ked because it’s such a limited viewership now,” he added. “So your sponsors are less — if you even had any. Your notoriety, your fame, your social media following, your YouTube channel to sell merch… The day and age of a superstar in the UFC is gone, gone. It’s so gone.”
Even before the ESPN deal, it was hard to get Conor Mcgregor back to Octagon and now with his demand to get a share in the company is another issue that UFC isn’t ready to fulfill. However, UFC head honcho Dana White previously said they’ll make him happy and said Irishman would return to competition as early as this summer.
Brenda Schaub continues to dig on Dana White.
“Notice the direction of the marketing now on ESPN. Who do you see now? Dana White,” he said. “It’s very Vince McMahon… This is the face that you recognize. Because you won’t recognize the fighters, but you recognize Dana White. So his ego and his popularity goes up. That’s the face [of the company] now. That’s not good. All the promos are Dana. It’s all him. That’s insane, man.”
Share your thoughts do you think UFC made the right decision to move the PPV’s to ESPN?
