UFC CEO Dana White reflected on how the UFC missed out on a broadcasting deal with NBC due to a provision that granted WWE Chairman Vince McMahon the authority to prevent combat sports from being aired on the network.
White revealed the hurdles he had to overcome to secure a new broadcasting deal for the UFC back in 2011 and how they ultimately landed a partnership with Fox.
Dana White Reveals How Vince McMahon Blocked UFC’s NBC Deal
Speaking on Stephanie McMahon’s “What’s Your Story” podcast, White revealed that the UFC was on the verge of signing a broadcasting deal with NBC back in 2011. White expressed his disbelief upon discovering a contractual loophole that gave McMahon the authority to control whether other combat sports could be broadcast on the USA Network.
“So I’m on the 1-yard line, we’re about to get a deal done with NBC,” White said. “One of my big deal points was that ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ had to be on USA [Network]. We’re literally in New York for days, hammering it out with all the executives over there. Finally, they come back and say, ‘We’ll do it; we’ll put ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ on USA.'”
“So the next day we come back, and we’re about to sign the deal and do all this stuff, and they’re like, ‘We can’t believe this, we didn’t know this, we just found out — Vince McMahon has the right to determine whether another combat sport can come onto USA,'” White added. “I’m like, ‘What? How is that even f****** possible?”
Furthermore, White shared that he flew out to meet McMahon, where the former WWE CEO ultimately shut down the UFC’s broadcasting deal.
“So me and Lorenzo [Fertitta] said we’ll fly out to Connecticut, and we’ll meet with Vince, and we’ll see if we can get this done. We fly out, we go to the offices, we go in with [Vince] and we sit down, we lay it out to him, tell him the story, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I don’t want you on the network.’ We’re like, why? [He said,] ‘I just don’t want you on it.'”
White later explained that after the NBC deal fell through, they headed to Los Angeles and ultimately secured a deal with Fox.
“So that blew up the whole NBC deal. We were actually going to buy G4. We were buying G4 and all this other crazy [stuff]. So then we pick up the phone and we call Eric Shanks and we fly out to L.A. and we do the Fox deal. The rest is history.”
The UFC’s deal with Fox turned out to be a great move for the promotion, helping it maintain an upward growth trajectory. However, the organization parted ways with Fox in 2018.
Following that, the UFC signed a deal with ESPN in 2019. That deal has recently ended, and the promotion is now looking for a new broadcast partner.