ESPN

Ari Emanuel sold ESPN the UFC while pitching a rival the same day. With Fox gone, Amazon's offer cut from about $260 million to $140 million, and no obvious buyer, Emanuel kept negotiating with Disney while pitching Viacom. A WhatsApp from Kevin Mayer said the price they wanted was a deal, and Emanuel slid the phone to Mark Shapiro mid-pitch.

Mayer had taken over and wanted direct-to-consumer content. The rights deal closed in about three and a half months at $300 million per the ask. Quote: "everybody says these guys are idiots".

David Senra▶ 20:59

Emanuel pushed ESPN to buy the pay-per-views as well. After the initial ten-episode deal, ESPN bought the pay-per-views in a seven-year deal worth almost $4 billion, close to the UFC's purchase price.

Another source puts the ESPN deal at $3 billion, and the two figures are not reconciled in the sources.

David Senra▶ 20:59

Dana White held out for ten episodes and ESPN gave in. ESPN offered eight episodes, but White said he would not sign unless it was ten. Emanuel screamed at Mayer that they needed ten to break stars and sell the paywall, and Bob Iger told his team to give them the ten.

Emanuel had no other buyers, so he had no move of his own when White dug in. Quote from White: "I'm not doing unless we have 10."

David Senra▶ 17:23

ESPN's must-have sports rights let Disney raise cable fees year after year. Disney agreed to buy Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion at Sun Valley in 1995, mostly pitching Warren Buffett, and ESPN came buried inside the deal. ESPN's average fee reached $9.42 per subscriber per month, and cable networks produced 60% of Disney's operating income from 2008 to 2011.

ESPN used sports rights to threaten cable operators with pulling the plug, which is how it pushed fees up. Nobody involved knew how big it would get. About four years of ESPN profit paid for Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm. Quote: "sports rights are the biggest point of leverage that they could possibly have over the cable operators".

Acquired▶ 1:08:28

Emanuel pushed ESPN to buy the pay-per-views as well. After the initial ten-episode deal, ESPN bought the pay-per-views in a seven-year deal worth almost $4 billion, close to the UFC's purchase price.

Another source puts the ESPN deal at $3 billion, and the two figures are not reconciled in the sources.

David Senra

Dana White ignored critics who said each UFC TV deal was the peak. Rights fees grew from $35 million at Spike to $100 million at Fox, $3 billion at ESPN and $7.7 billion over seven years at Paramount. Critics said the Fertittas overpaid when they sold for $4.025 billion in 2016 with no TV deal lined up.

White says the same people made the peak claim at Spike, Fox, ESPN and Paramount, and his answer is to block out noise from people who have never built anything. Quote: "you have to block all this noise out."

David Senra▶ 46:40

Dana White kept staff and ran fights while ESPN's guarantee stood. Bob Iger had promised ESPN would pay whether the UFC held no events or all 44, but White figured ESPN would cut the UFC first if it did not deliver. He found a place within a couple of weeks and built a bubble on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.

Others laid people off while White kept every employee and said his own pay was safe. As the only live sport available, the UFC pulled very strong numbers for ESPN and the business grew. Quote: "All my employees are going to stay intact".

David Senra▶ 59:34