UFC president Dana White gave a statement where he was talking about the benefits of ESPN deal, and the possibilities of The Ultimate Fighter in the future.
UFC has recently made a tremendous deal with ESPN. The company will pay 1.5 billion dollars for five years but there is still a part of the population who believe Dana White didn’t do a good job. You can’t ignore the fact that Fox offered tremendous 200 million dollars for the portion of programming.
Anyway, Dana White defends the contract heavily. Better don’t try challenging him and pointing to the bad sides or he will blow you away with his arguments. He has released an interesting statement ahead of UFC Liverpool: (via bloodyelbow.com)
“That’s what the idiots are always going to do. ‘Is it good, is it bad?’ Our last deal was $116 million a year. This one is $300 million. If you can’t figure out that that’s good, get outta here. I’ve been in Maine blowing my brains out for three days celebrating. That’s how good it is.”
Dana White also emphasized the fact that the number of UFC shows grows as the time goes by, and also had an argument against media members that barely wait to criticize the deal.
“That’s exactly right: 42 shows. I have the ability to make some original content for those guys too, and it’s going to be awesome. ESPN wouldn’t cover us. Now we’re on ESPN. Anybody who doesn’t think this is a win, just shut up. Stop covering the sport if you think this isn’t a win.”
In the end, Dana had something to add to Fight Pass and The Ultimate Fighter.
“Fight Pass will be the destination where the entire library is, and you can watch whatever fight you want too or whatever other content we have on there,” White said. “So that’ll be the same. And this ESPN deal is US. So, Fight Pass is the rest of the world.”
…
“We don’t know yet. We’re coming up on the latest season of The Ultimate Fighter. We don’t know. It might be the last one. 13 years, The Ultimate Fighter has gone. It’s incredible.”
As soon as the 2019 starts, UFC will be moved to another broadcasting destination. What do you think, did Dana White made a good choice with ESPN? Were you previously happy with Fox Sports?
