Dana White is extracting value from UFC to build his personal brand

Dana's quiet quitting during UFC 314 week in Miami was flagrant.

Dana White was way off his game at UFC 314 fight week in Miami.

The Dana White MMA fans are used to was nowhere to be seen.

Where was the Dana White who can sell snow during a blizzard? Where was the Dana White who effortlessly commands press conferences before rowdy fight crowds? The lion tamer who handles roaring reporters with his ringmaster’s bullwhip and chair?

That Dana White was notably absent during the presser featuring bantamweight champ Merab Dvalishvili and former champ Sean O’Malley hyping their upcoming rematch at UFC 316 in June.

Given that O’Malley hasn’t fought since he lost a one-sided decision to Dvalishvili in September, it was a given that some reporter would ask Dana “why?”

Sure enough, that moment came three minutes into the presser when the first questioner asked his final question, and the first addressed directly to Dana:

Reporter: My final question is for Dana. Merab could have had his pick against any of these bantamweight contenders. Why was this the fight that you felt should have been made?

Dana White: [Long pause] Um…this is the fight that people wanted to see. [Smattering of noise from one section of the venue]. Except for these six guys over here.

The Dana White that led the UFC to world conquest would never have been stumped for an answer to the most obvious question about the match he’s promoting. And if he didn’t have a good answer, he would have just shouted down the pesky questioner with his patented bluster and maybe some name-calling for good measure.

Instead, Dana paused, stammered, and then responded with the emptiest kind of insincere platitude — a platitude no one present believed.

O’Malley is getting a rematch despite not having notched a win since losing his belt in a unanimous decision loss to Dvalishvili that left few, if any fans, clamoring for a quick rematch.

O’Malley’s been consistent with his excuse-making, claiming a late-in-training hip injury left him unable to properly prepare for Merab’s wrestling, and a Dana that was on his game (or at least paying attention when O’Malley answered the same question moments before) could have answered it easily and with authority.

Seriously, watch Dana’s body language in the video above. He’s phoning it in, looking directly down much of the time, and when he is looking at the fighter who’s talking, he’s doing it at an angle that hides his face.

The Dana White whose expressive face could be counted on to dominate the crowd’s attention with his “can you believe this crazy shit?” looks didn’t make it to Miami last week.

Even at UFC 314, Dana spent most of his time looking at his phone instead of at the action in the cage. Dana didn’t even seem interested in the President of the United States sitting next to him.

Donald Trump, to his credit, did a pretty good job of looking at the fights most of the time, leaving Dana’s boss, TKO CEO Ari Emanuel, and his right-hand man, UFC CBO Hunter Campbell, to schmooze Elon Musk and the other billionaires Trump carried in his wake.

This tweet captures the vibe:

Dana was slightly more engaged at the post-fight press conference, but even there, some of his answers were perhaps more revealing than he meant them to be.

When asked about the pending UFC media rights deal (ESPN’s exclusive negotiation window closes on April 15th) and TKO’s reported asking price of $1B/year, all he had to say was, “Sounds good to me.”

This contrasted sharply with TKO COO Mark Shapiro’s most recent comments on the UFC’s reported billion-dollar asking price, “That’s not coming from the company.”

But then, Dana leaves things like negotiating the UFC’s media deals to his bosses Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro. He always has. Even when Zuffa owned the company and Dana was much more engaged, they left the deal-making to their then-agents and current owners at Endeavor WME.

What else was Dana White doing last week?

Half-assing his UFC assignments left Dana plenty of time to do other things. Notably, he and Hunter Campbell spent a couple of hours Friday night sitting next to streaming superstar Adin Ross and boxer Teofimo Lopez and providing commentary on Ross’ warehouse celebrity influencer fight card.

Presumably, White and Campbell had two reasons for doing this. One, cultivating their relationship with Ross, a popular streamer with 4.5M YouTube followers. Two, helping promote Lopez’s upcoming May boxing fight in Times Square on behalf of their TKO Boxing partner Turki Alalshikh, who’s putting on the New York card.

However, White even seemed checked out while working on his latest side-hustle.

When Lopez spent a little time talking up Turki and the upcoming card, Dana gave him a perfunctory “Oh yeah” or two, but the conversation only got interesting at two points.

The first was when the conversation turned to Canadian rapper Drake and when Dana saw him last.

Dana White: Last time I think I saw him was at the Conor-Floyd (fight) that's what it was in Toronto.

Hunter Campbell: I don't know if it's true, but I I think he came to the last fight we had in Canada he was in a box. That's what we were told.

Dana: Well, we'll see you in Montreal then Drake. Uh when.. next week?

Hunter: May 10th

Yeah, Dana doesn’t know when the next UFC pay-per-view is happening. Good thing he’s got Hunter Campbell there to handle those hard to keep up with details.

More alarmingly, Hunter Campbell gave Ross an impromptu warning about gambling, seemingly using Dana as the what-not-to-do example (the video has a jump cut so we don’t know what led up to this):

Hunter Campbell: I literally went home last night, it was 3:00 in the morning, and I feel sick after watching what you (Dana) did to yourself. Even if (Dana) wins it's like unnecessary trauma. I don't understand. I don't have that that thing.

Dana White: He’s got it (pointing at Ross).

Campbell: I know you (Ross) have it cause I've watched you too. You know I've talked to you two separately. Listen to me.

Adin Ross: Yeah, you gave me the talk.

Hunter: You're very young and you're very successful.

Ross: Hunter it’s so hard though. When you're on that table. Dana I can't get out. I'm sorry. Sometimes I just can't do it.

Hunter: I'm going to tell you what it is You either are a gambler. It's like being a fighter. You either are a gambler or you are not a gambler. Just that's it. Yeah And it's not about whether or not you have a risk tolerance It's not about whether or not you're a pussy. You either are or you're not.

And if you have that thing in you which you have for sure and (Dana) has more than any human I've ever met in my entire life.

Teofimo Lopez: My favorite saying when you when you gamble you bet like a bitch, you never get rich.

Ross: That's good I like that a lot.

Campbell: Yeah I don't like that. That's not very smart.

Ross: Oh yeah Don't gamble guys.

Campbell: You bet like a bitch and you're already rich, you go home rich still. Okay, there's two ways to look at that.

Ross: So Hunter you don't gamble at all?

Campbell: No, no. Here's my thing with gambling. If you think about it logically the casino has a mathematical edge and there is nothing you can really do over a sustained period of time to beat it, right?

So you're doing it for another reason. You're entertaining yourself. But, if you're logical and you understand you're willing to play long enough you cannot win over the long term. As long as you know that and you're entertaining yourself that's fine. But there's a degree of entertaining, a degree abusing You don't have to abuse yourself.

Given that one of Dana’s non-UFC activities last week was a $10 million baccarat tournament and that White has claimed he has a system for winning at baccarat (he doesn’t, the house has the odds in their favor), maybe Hunter’s warning wasn’t solely aimed at young Ross. Maybe he’s trying to tell his boss that he’s got a problem.

Dana’s activities also got a little spooky last week

Spooky as in spy shit.

This is a weird one and I’m just going to admit up front that I have no fucking idea what it means.

South African boxer Chris van Heerden went on the Megyn Kelly show and profusely thanked two people for helping free his ballerina girlfriend from a Russian prison. One of the people was producer/director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights). The other was Dana White.

Another name I want to thank is Dana White. Dana White being very good friends with President Trump is on board as well. Dana's advocating for me and Dana's pushing.

You’ll be happy to know that van Heerden’s girlfriend, Ksenia Karelina, has been freed in exchange for an accused Russian microelectronics smuggler held by the U.S.

Not sure that’s an even trade, but I’m glad the young lady is free and headed home to California.

Dana isn’t just advising the Trump administration on which Russian prisoners to free, he’s also working hard to sell the Feds on paying TKO to train cops in MMA.

Lara Trump’s introduction of Dana sums up where I’ve been going with all this. This is a man who has transcended the Octagon and now strides the halls of power, money, and influence:

His influence stretches far beyond the Octagon. Business, politics or entertainment, Dana's footprint is massive and growing.

He made waves with his appointment to the board of Meta, stepping into a whole new arena, Silicon Valley. Shaping the future of technology, human connection and free speech with the same fierce energy he's known for in the UFC.

JFC.

She goes on to ask Dana White about the “summit meeting” between Trump and Bill Maher he arranged and attended with fellow Trump good-will ambassador Kid Rock.

After establishing that Dana White is all about bringing people together to talk amicably despite disagreements, Lara Trump pivots to Dana’s relationship with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and it’s pretty revealing both about what Zuck wants from Dana and what Trump-world wants from Zuckerberg:

Lara Trump: People are happy to see you (on the Meta board) because there was a time where a lot of people, conservatives specifically felt there was a lot of silencing and suppression on multiple social media sites, but to have you in Meta- makes you feel good. But you know Mark Zuckerberg, now so a lot of people have seen him, he was at the inauguration, it seems like he has turned over a new leaf. what you make of that?

Dana White: Instead of this administration having all these enemies and fighting all these wars, let's create allies and work together and make everything better for everybody, not just conservatives but everybody. So that has been my goal, these first 100 days or however long it's been.

Inspiring.

Then they turn to Dana White and FBI director Kash Patel’s scheme to get TKO a presumably lucrative government contract to have UFC fighters train FBI agents in Mixed Martial Arts.

Good work if you can talk a cabinet member into it.

Is Dana engaged in TKO’s lobbying to change the Ali Act?

Given Dana’s “massive and growing footprint,” one has to wonder if he’s taking any role in TKO’s admitted attempt to lobby the UFC. ESPN confirmed previous reports by Erik Magraken for Combat Sports Law and got a quote from TKO:

"TKO is having preliminary conversations with members of Congress about how we can work together to expand the Ali Act to create more choices and opportunities for boxers," the UFC spokesperson said. "We believe the enhancements we are discussing could help to inspire a boxing revival in America, provide American boxers with access to greater opportunities and better protections, and lead to more boxing events across our country."

Yeah, letting TKO have their own belt without any independent sanctioning bodies is really going to “provide American boxers with access to greater opportunities and better protections.”

Regardless of whether or not Dana’s taking a direct role in the lobbying (highly unlikely), it’s clear he’s down with the agenda to weaken boxers’ legal protections.

The question is if he has time in his busy schedule to focus on it.

But wait, there’s more: Dana White, tech visionary

As I was putting the final touches on this piece, a new press release dropped from VeChain, a company that does some sort of blockchain thing that has previously announced multiple partnerships with both the UFC and Power Slap (in fact VeChain is the sponsor of Power Slap’s YouTube broadcasts, which is what Power Slap got instead of a new media rights deal).

Here’s what VeChain says they do (anyone who can translate this to English please do so in the comments):

VeChain's VeBetter ecosystem uses decentralized applications (dApps) to incentivize sustainable actions, rewarding users with B3TR tokens for their activities. By recording, or ‘tokenizing’ sustainable actions on blockchain, VeChain helps create economic value that would have otherwise gone unrealized and lays technological foundations for a more circular economy. The app platform is focused on real world impact and aims to make blockchain more tangible for everyday users.

Here’s what they say Dana White will do for them in his new advisory role:

Dana White, the visionary behind UFC’s meteoric rise into a global sports powerhouse reaching over 950 million households, brings his unmatched expertise in brand expansion, fan engagement, and disruptive innovation to VeChain. Renowned for his relentless drive and no-nonsense approach, White will play a pivotal role in amplifying VeChain’s flagship sustainability initiative, VeBetterDAO—a next-generation decentralized platform that incentivizes real-world sustainable actions through B3TR tokens.

White’s appointment signals a transformative shift in blockchain adoption. By leveraging his influence across UFC, Power Slap, and global sports communities, he will introduce VeChain’s technologies to a vast and engaged audience, bridging the gap between blockchain utility and mainstream awareness.

Hoo boy, I can’t wait to hear Dana in action “amplifying VeChain’s flagship sustainability initiative, VeBetterDAO.”

This is such a stark contrast with what Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg said about what having Dana White on Meta’s board brings to the company that I just have to revisit Zuck’s statement from January:

I actually get to use our board to have the smartest people who I can get to have around me to help work on these problems.

"So it's like, alright, who are the people I want? I just want the best entrepreneurs and people who have created different things."

"I think part of what the conversation that I had with him around joining our board was, 'OK, we have a lot of governments and folks around the world putting a lot of pressure on our company, and we need some strong people who are going to basically help advise us on how to handle some of these situations.'

"Running this company is not for the faint of heart. There's definitely a lot of pressure from all these different governments. I could spend all my time doing that, but I'm not even a politician. I just want to spend my time building things, right? So yeah, I think Dana's gonna be great."

And what does Dana get for bringing all this strength and his vaunted friendship with POTUS Trump?

Sportico estimated Dana’s annual retainer at $50K/year plus 1,999 “restricted stock units” in the company (value estimated at $1.28 million at the time), which “appears to be a significantly larger distribution than what previous Meta board members initially received. For example, Tracey Thomas Travis, who became a director in March 2020, received 270 RSUs at the time.”

As we saw above in Presidential-daughter-in-law/Fox host Lara Trump’s comments about Zuckerberg, dude knows he’s been on the MAGA naughty list, and he’s flat out paying Dana White a small fortune to help fix that.

Not coincidentally, the Federal Trade Commision brought Meta to trial today for violating antitrust laws. The stakes in the case?

If the FTC convinces U.S. District Judge James Boasberg that Meta’s 2012 and 2014 acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were illegal, the agency will try to split up the $1.4 trillion company. A breakup of that size hasn’t been attempted since telephone monopoly AT&T was unwound 40 years ago.

It will be interesting to see if Zuckerberg’s investment in Dana White buys him any favor with the Trump administration, but it’s not like White has anything to lose here.

Whether Meta wins or loses at trial, Dana White will be significantly wealthier and more credible as a businessman.

Good work if you can get it, and Dana White is getting it while the getting is good.

The bigger question is what value will be left to extract from the sport of Mixed Martial Arts by the time Dana White and his bosses at TKO/WME Group are done with it.

Zach Arnold and I discussed the sad state of non-UFC USA MMA in this week’s MMA Draw podcast.

Where does Dana go from here?

Today marks the end of ESPN/Disney’s exclusive negotiation window with TKO/WME Group.

It’s a good time to ask where Dana White goes from here.

The conventional wisdom is that Dana is going to hang around a while, as long as Trump is in office. This makes a lot of sense because Dana White is the one who has the famous public relationship with President Trump, and that brings a lot of value to the UFC — for now.

But what does a post-Trump era look like for Dana? What does he want to accomplish?

The big problem for a super-rich guy with a super big gambling habit who lives in Las Vegas is the super big income stream necessary to maintain that life.

Dana wanted Power Slap to be his new thing, but clearly, that isn’t ever going to be a UFC-level success.

Dana may be able to phone in his work for the UFC, but there are big expectations from both WME Group and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for TKO Boxing to be a UFC-level success.

Dana White has achieved more success in his career than most people can imagine, but can he do it again, on a bigger stage, in a bigger sport for much higher stakes?

Time will tell, and we’ll be here to tell the tale. Stay tuned.

Nate Wilcox is Editor-in-Chief of The MMA Draw. He founded BloodyElbow.com in 2007 and sold it in 2024.