LAS VEGAS.- The American Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the largest mixed martial arts company in the world, remembers that since he was a child he admired Bruce Lee for his combat ability but he was also influenced by Mexican boxers, especially Salvador Sánchez. or Julio César Chávez, for his indomitable spirit, for his ability to fight in a ring (and in life), to the point of recognizing their influence on his business vision.
Completely shaved, the CEO of the most valuable combat sports company in the world, wearing jeans, sneakers and a sweatshirt from the event he is promoting, UFC 306 (each numbered event means it is pay-per-view) that would take place one day after the talk with Forbes Mexico in its offices in Las Vegas, an idea from White himself for the Mexican Independence weekend, a UFC Night with a poster mostly of Aztec fighters, some of them champions until then, like the Guadalajara Alexa Grasso ; but also, it would have a venue that no one else had thought of for a wrestling, boxing or MMA event: the famous Sphere.
“The Mexican market? I have always been a fan, you have to understand that I come from boxing and I have always had this passion for Mexico, even though boxing is so big in the United States, Mexico has played such an important role in sports fighting. Look at the lineage and history of the guys who have come out of there like Salvador Sánchez, talk to anyone who knows anything about boxing, Salvador Sánchez, everyone knows him, the best of all time. And then, the other great ones that have emerged. I was a big fan of Julio César Chávez growing up. So I’ve always had this connection. Mexico is for me almost what Hong Kong is because of my love of Bruce Lee. When I went to Hong Kong for the first time and saw the statue and all the things related to Bruce Lee, I felt a connection because I admired him since I was a child and Mexico has that same effect on me,” he says.
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The most valuable combat sports brand in the world: $11.3 billion
on the list Forbes Of the most valuable combat sports companies in 2024, the UFC ranks first with a value of $11.3 billion and a global reach in more than 170 countries; above the second place which is the WWE (6.8 billion dollars) and well above boxing companies such as Matchroom Boxing (place 5 and a value of 850 million dollars); Top Rank Boxing (7th place and a value of 630 million dollars) or the company that supports Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez, Premier Boxing Championship (8th place and a value of 600 million dollars).
La Sphere
If they say that adversity is when the best ideas emerge, White, 55 years old and CEO of UFC since 2001, is a master at it, a visionary who has known how to grow his business exponentially and who has taken advantage of any negative circumstance to recover and knock out destiny. As in the Covid-19 pandemic, when in 2020 he came up with the concept “The Island of Fight” in Abu Dhabi. To avoid confinement, White produced an infrastructure on an island located in international waters, which allowed him to take his fighters and hold weekly fights there, a bubble free of the virus and prohibitions, a true success. And now the Sphere.
The manager says that it was thanks to Tom Brady and, indirectly, Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez, that he came up with the idea of bringing UFC 306 to the Sphere, a venue which cost 2.3 billion dollars and has just completed one year in Las Vegas. This enclosure is an imposing structure 112 meters high and 157 meters wide; Its LED screen has 15,000 square meters with a resolution of 16k x 16k, the largest in the world; It has 18,600 seats, although a few more can be adapted on stage.
White recalls that UFC 306 was originally planned to take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, but even though he already had an agreement with MGM to hold the event, boxing promoter Al Haymon “got up early” and pulled him out. at that venue on the date of September 14 for Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez’s fight against Edgar Berlanga. That bothered White a lot because MGM did not notify him despite already having the date set and also because they were about to sign a contract extension. White refused to continue with them and negotiated with MGM CEO Bill Hornbuckle to terminate the contract so he could do his event at the Sphere.
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“Tom Brady called me and asked if I wanted to go with him to see U2 at the Sphere. So, I went and went crazy. And U2 did not fully take advantage of the Sphere’s capabilities. And literally 45 minutes later, I was like, I’m going to do this. I’m going to be the first to do a sporting event here. So, I called my head of production, Craig Borsari, and said, you’re coming to see U2 next weekend, bring the crew, let’s figure this out and let’s do it. So if I hadn’t gone to the Sphera with Tom Brady, if I hadn’t gotten into this battle with MGM, this would never have happened,” White believes.
Craig Borsari, Executive Vice President of UFC, says in an interview that it cost more than 20 million dollars to make White’s “occurrence” a reality for UFC 306 at the Sphere, with a show that included six animated short films about the history of Mexico, made especially for that impressive screen, and they were even narrated by the voice in off by Gael García Bernal; More than 450 creatives worked on it, including multiple Emmy Award winners, Golden Globe winners and Oscar nominees.
UFC Performance Institute in Mexico
There are only three UFC Performance Institutes in the world: in Las Vegas; in China; and the most recent in Mexico City, which was inaugurated in February of this year by White.
It is a high-performance center for mixed martial arts with state-of-the-art equipment, everything necessary to improve the performance of the fighters and students of the UFC Academy, that is where they prepare the new generations who seek to win a championship.
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Why, of all the countries in the world, choose Mexico to install this center? Duncan French, Senior Vice President of the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas, is asked. “Obviously there is commercial interest in Mexico and Latin America, we believe in the ability to transfer boxing and wrestling talent, to have Mexican fighters in the UFC. We love Mexican wrestling, it is a heritage, I am passionate about Mexican wrestlers and we would like to elevate Mexican talent more, that is why we chose that venue. I cannot share exact numbers but it is a multi-million dollar investment and that also demonstrates our commitment to Mexico,” details French.
UFC wins by knockout
In the press room at the Sphere, Vicente Fernández plays, an endless playlist, between fight and fight and between conference and conference where the fighters who won their fight go, which shows that it is a Mexican night. There, at the end of the memorable function, Dana White appears, always simple and accessible to all questions. The day was surely as he himself expected, a resounding success, a full house, and thousands of fans, many of them Mexican, happy, wearing the official jerseys of the event with pride.
According to White, the UFC Night raised a total of 22 million dollars, a profit of 2 million if one takes into account that they invested 20 million for the production of the event. The manager says that it is the largest figure in the history of the company and that it far exceeded the 17 million dollars they raised in 2016 at the function where Connor McGregor fought against Eddie Álvarez. This event also became a watershed for upcoming sporting events and especially combat events in Sin City.
“Everything went perfectly, we didn’t have much time to rehearse, that was our big concern coming here, but the team did everything perfectly. Everything we do in the arena is reaching another level,” White said at the press conference.
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The CEO said that for UFC 306 there were 16,024 tickets available to the public and each and every one of them was sold. As if that were not enough, he assured that it was the most profitable night for the company in terms of the sale of official merchandise, although he did not reveal the figure.
Dana White’s love letter to Mexico
Not in vain, White named this event his love letter to Mexico, beyond the commercial.
“There are many things that I love about Mexicans and their culture, but for me everything comes from combat and from the first day we bought this company, I wanted to plant our flag in Mexico If you look Enter the Dragon With Bruce Lee, he was trying to bring together the toughest fighters in the world to find out who was the strongest and that’s basically what we do here. And Mexico, for me, is fundamental to this,” says White.
