Getty Image / Chris Unger
Since 2019, UFC fans have been able to watch fights on the ESPN family of networks and on ESPN+.
According to Dana White, that was only possible because of one major scandal.
During a recent interview with Grant Cardone, White revealed that former ESPN head John SKipper’s drug scandal opened the door for the UFC’s deal with ESPN.
Dana White tells John Skipper story.pic.twitter.com/HRm656D0jA
— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) December 21, 2022
I’ll tell you a crazy story. You ever hear of John Skipper? John Skipper ran ESPN. Now, I think he runs DAZN. Runs ESPN, beloved, looks like the squarest dude on the planet. Older guy. Hates UFC. Hates it. Hates UFC. Big soccer guy. For whatever reason, people like different things. And I’m not s—ing on John Skipper. But this is a fact, this happened and this is a true story.
John Skipper, beloved at ESPN, ESPN’s at the top of their game. These guys are killing it in revenue, they’re getting $5 per subscriber when cable was the biggest it’s ever been. So, our FOX deal is up and we’re probably not gonna do another deal with FOX. They’re selling off cable networks and re-structuring. So they’re not the same company when we signed with them. And John Skipper’s never, ever gonna take the UFC. So, we’re in a real tough place.
John Skipper’s cocaine dealer is gonna rat him out. So he has to tell Disney ‘My cocaine dealer is gonna go public’ or whatever, so he has to step down from ESPN, right at the time we’re trying to make a new TV deal. Who do they make president? Jimmy Pitaro, who ran Yahoo! Sports for years. I’ve known him a long time. He’s a great dude, and he loves the UFC. Now you got him, you got a guy named Kevin Mayer, who is really closed to [Endeavor CEO] Ari [Emanuel], and we ended up doing the ESPN deal when our deal was up.
The deal has worked out well for the UFC as money continues to pour in for them. It’s just too bad it hasn’t made them enough money to stop them from continuing to jack up prices on their pay-per-views.