Lorenzo Fertitta & Dana White On Recent Sale Rumors: We Own The UFC
Over the last month or so, multiple reports have surfaced indicating that the UFC had indeed been sold for a record setting $4.2 billion dollars. The reports claimed that a bid had been accepted and that an announcement was likely to come around the time of this weekend’s (Sat., July 9, 2016) blockbuster UFC 200 from the brand new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Throughout the midst of these rumors, there has yet to be official confirmation from the promotion, and it looks as if the UFC brass is sticking to its guns in terms of denying the reports.
UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta recently spoke to the LA Times on the situation, saying that there’s simply nothing to report and that his love for the sport of mixed martial arts remains intact:
“If we bring on an investor or something happens, we’ll let everyone know. I’ve never been more bullish on the business. I still have massive love for the sport. I never said I was walking away. What’s happening — this is standard. Any company, this size and magnitude, you don’t talk about things you’re working on in strategical terms. So there’s nothing to report.”
Piggy backing off of what Fertitta had to say, UFC President Dana White added that the rumors are ‘unbelievable’. White also confirmed that he and the Fertitta brothers still own the world’s largest mixed martial arts promotion:
“I’m in Bangor, Maine [recently], and people are yelling at me, ‘Congratulations!’ I’m looking at my family, saying, ‘Most of the free world thinks me and the Fertittas don’t own the UFC anymore.’ It’s unbelievable. We own the UFC. We did not sell the UFC. We own it.”
We have seen the UFC brass say one thing and do another on multiple occasions, but as of now it seems as if they will remain in ownership of the UFC – or so they say. Do you see the company selling in the near future?
