The UFC is the biggest MMA promotion in the world but who owns the multi-billion dollar business?
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has grown leaps and bounds in the past decade or so.
It used to be a secondary show when compared to boxing or even the WWE, but now, the UFC (and other promotions) hold multi-million dollar shows which are broadcast all around the world.
There are some huge stars in the promotion too. Ronda Rousey, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Tyrone Woodley, Georges St-Pierre, Amanda Nunes and Connor McGregor are some of the best in the history of the UFC.
Dana White is the president of the show and is hugely responsible for making UFC what it is today, but who owns the promotion?
Ownership changes hands
Zuffa LLC was created in 2001 when UFC was bought for $2million from SEG. Station Casinos executives, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta joined forces with White, to land the promotion.
This was a turning point for the UFC as the new owners were able to turn the promotion into a pay-per-view model again.
They were able to even purchase rival MMA organisation Pride, which was based in Japan. This allowed several stars from the other promotion to star in the UFC.
Women’s MMA was added into the UFC in early 2012 with Ronda Rousey as one of the main stars. Since then, several female stars have been produced and they have even been the main events at certain pay-per-views.
While Zuffa did a lot of great things for UFC and brought it into the mainstream. However, the current owners of UFC are WME-IMG (Endeavor) group.
They were able to pry UFC from the hands of other big consortiums such as the Dalian Wanda Group and China Media Capital.
The promotion was eventually sold for $4.025 billion on 9 July 2016 to a group led by WME-IME.
The UFC, under Endeavor, have also followed the route that Zuffa did. They tied up with Russian MMA promotion M-1 to help find more fighters from that area of the world.
ESPN also signed an exclusive agreement with UFC with ESPN+ broadcasting events and also creating special shows which are provided on their network.
The UFC has had its fair share of problems, especially the use of doping agents. However, that is a problem for any rising sport in the world.
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White is still the head of the UFC and there is no doubt it will grow further under him.
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