The world of mixed martial arts faced quite a lot of trouble in its earlier days. While things got awry with the cables and the satellites, Dana White had no choice, but to opt out of the pay-per-view models and ditch the idea of showing the fights through cable TV and satellites. He had to come up with a different plan.

Recently, the UFC president joined Forbes SportsMoney, and had a talk with Michael Ozanian. The duo conversed about the fighting business and how the Ultimate Fighting Championship had to face quite a bit of issues with the cable companies. Nevertheless, things began to change, and with the launch of ESPN+, UFC found a way to reach the fans scattered around the world. And it was definitely not a PPV model.

Dana White reflects on his battle for streaming

During his appearance on Forbes SportsMoney, White was asked about the MMA promotion’s future, with respect to media rights. The UFC boss reflected upon his initial struggle to let out the fights on satellite and cable TV. However, they had to switch from a PPV system to a streaming one.

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White said, “We’ve always been big risk takers. Obviously, back in the Fertitta days and now, with Ari [Emanuel] and WME days too, because when you think about it at that time, we did the deal with ESPN+. We were butting heads really badly with DirecTV and the cable systems out there. And they basically pushed us to the point, Ari and I talked and we said, ‘You know what, let’s just go ESPN streaming.’ you know, we were going on to a streaming platform, which was incredibly risky, at the time, even though you were doing it with Disney and ESPN. Massive risk. These guys are launching this thing. We were basically, you know, helped them launch ESPN+.”

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Going hand in hand, UFC’s success story closely coincided with that of ESPN’s streaming platform. Currently, the world of MMA can look up to the online service and watch the fights from the comfort of their homes. Emanuel and White took a great risk, but the rewards were huge, as well. It was the risky decision helped the UFC to grow and have a net worth of $12 billion.

The time when the UFC president got mad at ESPN

Back in 2022, ESPN let out an article regarding White’s comment on increasing the fighter’s pay. But the UFC’s head honcho was not happy about it. During an interview with Kevin Iole on Yahoo! Sports, White let his rage take over.

In a response to Iole’s question about the issue regarding fighter’s pay, White revealed his annoyance at the article. Claiming that the media giant published a piece out of context, he cried out, “Give me a f**king break.”

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Nevertheless, it was ESPN+ and the streaming services that made sure the fights reached every single fan. Undeniably, it was one of the great decisions, the UFC president has taken to date. What are your thoughts about it? Let us know in the comments down below.