Yesterday, ESPN’s Darren Rovell revealed that UFC owners were in advanced talks to sell the organization for nearly $4 billion.
Today, UFC president Dana White went on to the Dan Patrick show to talk about his future with the UFC if the Fertitta brothers decide to sell the company.
I don’t know. I don’t know how that would all work out, but I’ll tell you this — the day we decide to sell, I probably don’t want to do this anymore,” “I love this. I love this business. I love the sport. I jump out of bed everyday excited to go to work.
“And listen, me and Fertitta brothers have been together a long time. We’re very close friends. We work well together. Something we did would be a mutual decision and we’d probably all be looking to get out.”
White later went on to deny Rovell’s report that the UFC was up for sale.
“As far as the UFC being for sale, I’ve said this a million times, we get offers on the UFC all the time,” “It started in 2010. We got our first offer for the company, which was over $1 billion and we turned it down
“We’re not up for sale. We’re always working on deals and our expansion globally. I’ve been saying since this thing came out, no, we’re not for sale, but let me tell you what. If somebody shows up with $4 billion, we can talk. We can definitely talk.”
Despite White’s denials, Darren Rovell continues to aggressively report that the Fertitta brothers are taking bids for the company.
Hey @danawhite, once you hire an investment back to give out your financials, it's hard to say you're not for sale.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) May 11, 2016
We had three different independent sources that said that UFC volunteered a full year EBITDA of in between $200M & $250M to investors.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) May 11, 2016
Representative from Blackstone, floated as being interested in buying the UFC, tells me the investment bank won't be making UFC bid.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) May 11, 2016
NEW on UFC sale talks: Bid books sent by The Raine Group in March, info w/bidders was still being shared this week https://t.co/0zJvRGu6yl
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) May 11, 2016
Darren Rovell isn’t the best reporter in the world but he seems pretty confident with his sources here which makes me think that the UFC might actually be up for sale.
As for Dana White, it will be interesting to see what the UFC would look like without his iron fist running the company.
H/T LarryBrownSports