UFC for $4 billion in one single of the greatest deals within the past history of sport.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship, which Station Casinos’ Fertitta brothers took from a fringe company once described by John McCain as ‘human cockfighting,’ to a global sports empire, happens to be offered by the brothers for $4 billion.
The championships owner that is new US talent agency WME-IMG, which has been backed in the deal by private equity teams Silver Lake and KKR, because well as the household investment workplace of Michael Dell, founder of Dell computers.
The Fertittas, who will retain minority that is passive in the organization, paid simply $2 million for the brand name and its assets in 2001, at a low point for the championships.
UFC was dogged by accusations of brutality and vilified by politicians at that time, maybe not least of which was senior U.S. Senator John McCain from Arizona, whom helped persuade 36 states to ban ‘no-holds-barred fighting’ and pay per view carriers to eliminate it from their schedules.
It ended up being banned in New York just before UFC 12 was due to kick off, forcing organizers to find a new venue, in Alabama. New York only lifted that ban earlier this 12 months.
But under the Fertittas’ stewardship, UFC gained a new degree of respectability as promoters worked with state athletics commissions to impose new rules that curbed some of its previous (altro…)