UFC's Ultimate Fighter Turnaround
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Sam Parr tells the story of how Dana White and the Fertitta brothers turned the UFC from a failing business into a $4 billion success.
"Dana White was a boxing instructor in Boston. He moves to Vegas and connects with the Fertitta brothers, who he knew from high school. The Fertittas owned casinos and were somewhat into jiu-jitsu. Dana comes to them and says 'Hey, this thing called the UFC, it's kind of a sport. I went to one of these events, they're pretty amazing. The guy selling the brand - in reality what we're gonna get is a crappy little octagon and just the name UFC - it's $2 million, let's buy it.'
They get convinced to do it. Dana gets 4% of the equity, the brothers get the rest. But they fail for 4-5 years and end up $35 million in the hole. They come up with this brilliant idea to have a TV show called The Ultimate Fighter to promote the events. They convince Spike TV to air it.
They're about to run out of money when Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar have their famous fight. At the time, the winner was supposed to get a six-figure contract. The fight was so good that even though one guy won, they gave both of them contracts. From there the UFC took off - that was the turning point.
Dana and the two brothers run this business, with the brothers being the business brains behind it, really low key behind the scenes. Eventually it sells for $4 billion to Ari Emanuel's company and now it's like the hottest thing going."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.