UFC’s CEO reveals why he wanted David Ellison’s muscle behind his MMA giant, why pay-per-view events no longer work, and what a potential UFC fight at the White House would look like on CBS.
The lord of the Octagon reveals why he wanted David Ellison’s muscle behind his MMA giant, why pay-per-view events no longer work, and what a potential UFC fight at the White House would look like on CBS.
When David Ellison sat in the front row at a pair of UFC events in April and June, just a few seats away from Donald Trump, media analysts wondered whether the 42-year-old CEO of Skydance Media—and son of the world’s second richest man, Larry Ellison—was using the opportunity to smooth over any political concerns about his $8 billion acquisition of Paramount. The deal, which was held up by Trump’s FCC for months, officially closed last week, but it appears the merger wasn’t the only multibillion-dollar deal Ellison was working on in those ringside seats.
On Monday, the Las Vegas-based UFC announced a seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal with Paramount to stream all of its fights on Paramount+ in the United States, with select events to be simulcast on CBS.
UFC CEO Dana White tells Forbes he had a preexisting relationship with Larry Ellison and spoke with David at each of those events, one of many network executives looking to land the MMA behemoth. But it was Ellison who swooped in and knocked out the competition just days after the merger between his Skydance and Paramount was approved.
“These guys came in aggressive with an all-or-nothing approach and said, We want the whole thing,” White says. “The Ellisons are brilliant businessmen and have a whole game plan behind this thing. I can’t wait to be in business with them.”
At $1.1 billion per year in average annual value, the UFC will now earn nearly as much in media rights fees as MLB ($1.8 billion), the Olympics ($1.3 billion), March Madness ($1.1 billion) and Nascar ($1.1 billion), dwarfing the likes of the NHL ($635 million) and the PGA Tour ($700 million). And that figure only covers the United States.
