UFC’s Dana White on Donald Trump, ESPN, Roku Docuseries ‘Fight Inc.’

UFC CEO Dana White is one of the stars of the new Roku original docuseries “Fight Inc.: Inside the UFC,” touted as an “unprecedented” insider look at the company, marking its 30th anniversary .

Earlier this month, White – a known supporter of Donald Trump – starred in another production: Trump’s first TikTok video. Following footage of the ex-president greeting fans at UFC 302 in Newark, NJ, on June 1, the video shows White with Trump backstage during the fight. “The president is now on TikTok,” White says. “It’s my honor,” Trump says.

White, in an interview with Variety to Roku’s ‘Fight Inc.’ did not answer the question of why Trump – who is running for re-election for the US presidency against President Biden in 2024 – is the best candidate for office. Instead, he spoke of Trump as an old friend, dating back to 2001, when Trump agreed to let UFC 30 be hosted at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about Donald Trump,” White said. ‘I have had an incredible relationship with him for years. You know, when we first bought it [UFC]the stigma in the UFC was so bad that venues didn’t even want us. He reached out, made a deal, showed up for the first fight and stayed for the last fight.

‘You know, politics is very dirty. There are a lot of bad things said about him, and all I can tell you is that in my almost 25-year relationship with Donald Trump, he has been a great friend,” White said. “Amazing. He’s as stand-up as you can get, and I’m obviously a big supporter and a very good friend of his. Trump has been accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and by his supporters of inciting the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. In addition to his other legal issues, Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of fraud by a Manhattan jury in late May.

White spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention (after also doing so in 2016), where he said in part that “it is critical to re-elect President Trump,” whom he praised as “one of the most loyal people who I’ve ever seen.” ever met” and claimed that “before the pandemic, President Trump built the greatest economy in our country’s history and created opportunity for all Americans like no one before him.”

Today, mixed martial arts is a mainstream sport and the UFC is a billion-dollar business, posting $1.3 billion in revenue last year. Since 2019, UFC pay-per-view fights have been available exclusively in the US via Disney’s ESPN+ streaming platform. ESPN also has linear TV rights to UFC events. That deal runs until 2025. On the prospect of extending the ESPN deal, White said: “We are obviously in discussions and figuring out what’s next. You know, what’s the next chapter for UFC as far as television goes.”

“I love being at ESPN now. I like the working relationship we have with them, but you never know,” White said. “We’ll see how this plays out when we start negotiations.”

White said, “I’ve had my struggles with it [ESPN] We have done business together in recent years and I think the relationship has become incredibly stronger as a result.” He explained, “It was our first time with ESPN coming together, you know, two huge machines coming together and what’s different about us than the other sports they have is we do everything in-house. I do my own production. You know, when you make a deal with ESPN, Fox and some of these other networks, they come in and do all the production… We’ve run into some obstacles. We clash a little here and there [but] I feel like I’ve experienced all of that now with ESPN and we’re in an incredible place. We work very well together.”

Of “Fight Inc.,” for which White was one of the executive producers, he said, “There is no storyline. It was our 30th anniversary. It’s literally just reality TV… Everything that happened was real.” After months of shooting, “a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff was cut out because you only have so much time. But there was nothing that really made me think, ‘Oh God, let’s not air this.’

“Fight Inc.” According to White, this is the first time the UFC has shown filmmakers the behind-the-scenes matchmaking process of pairing fighters. “It’s almost the secret sauce that I don’t like when people really look at it, but it’s the coolest part of the business,” he said.

According to White, the Roku docuseries only shows a small portion of UFC’s reach. “We have 562 employees worldwide, including 412 in Vegas,” he said. “So what you saw in this Roku document is a little piece of how big this company is and how it really operates.”

In 2016, Endeavor (then called WMG/IMG) acquired UFC for $4 billion. At the time, “all the majors, all the big players out there, came and kicked the tires” at UFC, White said. “Ari [Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor] was exactly the one who finally closed the deal.”

Last year, Endeavor merged UFC and WWE under publicly traded TKO Group Holdings. Meanwhile, Endeavor has struck a $13 billion private deal with Silver Lake, expected to close in early 2025, while TKO will remain public.

When asked how the various ownership structures have changed – or will change – the way UFC does business, White said: “None of that affects us… We’re doing the exact same thing we were doing before TKO.” The advantage of combining UFC and WWE is that they can achieve economies of scale, and the UFC team has helped WWE boost its sponsorship deals, he said. “Ari now has this powerful machine where we can do a UFC event on Saturday, and on Sunday or Monday the same city can do WWE. Two completely different demographics,” White said.

In March, TKO announced it will pay $335 million to settle two class action lawsuits filed by former UFC fighters, alleging the company violated antitrust laws by paying UFC fighters less than they were entitled to and by disabling or harming other MMA promoters. Asked about the settlement and whether UFC now treats its talent differently, White said: “These types of lawsuits are what happens when you become successful… I run my business exactly the way I always have.”

“Fight Inc.,” which premiered June 7 on the free, ad-supported Roku Channel, consists of three 48-minute episodes. The series chronicles major storylines featuring the UFC’s biggest stars, including former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones, as he prepares to return after a three-year hiatus; the rise of Sean O’Malley as he fought for the bantamweight title; and the “greatest female fighter ever,” Amanda Nunes, as she headlined an event “full of challenges for the UFC team.”

Why hasn’t UFC released a documentary about itself on its own platforms or through ESPN? White said the company could have done that, but Roku had reached out about the project. “We flew there and met those guys” — including Roku Media president Charlie Collier and head of originals Brian Tannenbaum — “and I liked them, and they’re the guys I wanted to do,” White said.

The docuseries’ logline says it follows White and UFC amid “the euphoric highs and crushing lows of the fighting world.”

When asked what the “crushing lows” were, White said, “Injuries. You plan a big fight, you spend a lot of money on marketing, the whole machine starts moving. Then there’s a fight – and you see how we have to scramble… We now have to go back and redo everything that was already built, tear things down, redo posters, and, you know, billboards and commercials have to be remade.”

White said, “The highest of highs is when you build a great card, it’s super successful and it turns out exactly as you planned. The lowest of the lows are the things you saw when a fight fell apart.