As of April 2024, the MMA promotion known globally as the ‘Ultimate Fighting Championship’ is valued at a whopping $11.3 billion.
That’s a truly staggering figure; a far cry from the mere $2 million that Dana White and the Fertitta Brothers purchased the MMA promotion for back in 2001.
Yet one of the most expensive parts of their acquisition didn’t come from that original deal.
As White has now explained, it was the global distribution and merchandising rights that cost far more money – rights that have since skyrocketed in value by more than 2000%.
Dana White reveals UFC ‘rights’ cost more than the whole MMA promotion
Dana White recently sat down for a fascinating interview with Forbes’ Matt Craig to go over everything from how he first heard about the UFC, all the way to President Donald Trump’s involvement in the sport.
At one stage of the interview, the conversation shifted to those who ‘believed’ in the UFC brand from the get-go and who didn’t – if it wasn’t already obvious, White certainly took advantage of some poor business decisions from across the table.
“You want to talk about people not believing in the UFC, think about this – when we bought this company for $2 million, we literally bought an old wooden octagon, we had three letters ‘UFC’ and like 12-15 [fight] contracts, right?
“But the old owner had sold everything, all the ancillary away to Lionsgate right,” stated White, explaining how that meant Lionsgate owned “everything” from the rights to clothing merchandise and video games, all the way to DVDs.
“We flew out to Lionsgate [headquarters] and they sold us the rights back and I want to say it was like $3 million that was going to be paid over the next several years.
“When we left, they were probably cracking up laughing [at us] going ‘Wow, this is going to look great on our books over the next three years’ but now those rights are worth hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.”
“When you talk about not believing [in the UFC], they owned the rights to this thing and they never thought that it was going to work,” stated White, who’s left as the last one laughing.
In 2016, the UFC was sold to a group of investors led by WME-IMG for approximately $4 billion – a 2000% rise in valuation from the $2M it cost to purchase the promotion at the turn of the century.
Who were the top five UFC merchandise sellers in 2024?
From fight kits and custom apparel to gym equipment and collectibles, the UFC online store sells all kinds of merchandise to MMA fans around the world – but who sold the most merch in 2024?
According to a press release shared by the UFC in late-December, coming in as the fifth best-seller of merchandise was heavyweight champion Jon ‘Bones’ Jones.
The fourth best-seller was none other than former bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley who, despite no longer holding UFC gold, remains one of the most popular fighters on the roster.
The bronze medal went to Dustin ‘The Diamond’ Poirier, who has been teasing in recent months that he’s set to ride into battle just one more time as he eyes a retirement showdown stateside.
The second-best seller of merch was Max Holloway, whose last-second KO of Justin Gaethje at UFC 300 surely saw his sales skyrocket… But there can only be one top dog, ‘Poatan’.
Alex ‘Poatan’ Pereira was named as the one fighter who sold the most merchandise in 2024, and that should really be a surprise given both his insane popularity and equally insane strength of schedule last year.