Looks like the UFC being sold rumors are true

[Eff Pandas]

I was told last week that China's Wanda Group was the current front-runner in these talks and the sale could be announced as soon as July.

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani)

Numerous stories have been popping up lately about it. Looks like it could be coming to a head in a couple months.

There is no denying the UFC has been a huge success for the Feritta brothers. They purchased the UFC in 2001 for $2M. The UFC makes around a quarter bill a year these days from most accounts. And its looking to be sold for around $3.5B-$4B soon. The Feritta's are currently worth about $3B so with their 80% ownership of the UFC they will be basically doubling their net worth.

Supposedly the person most likely to score this deal is Wang Jianlin, the richest man in China worth ~$30B.


Whats your thoughts about this happening? Whats your thoughts on the impact this might have with changes, positive or negative, with the UFC?

[Anthony342]

Hopefully they'll use rules closer to One Championship then and not give undeserving fighters title shots, but ones that actually earn them and don't play favorites, whoever ends up owning it. Oh yeah and stops trying to BS the public, like Dana has done in the past.

Be funny if the Rizin guys owned it, since that would make Pride win in the end, with an owner from the old Pride running that promotion.

[MMAexamined]

sadly, any model other than UFC currently has will stop it from growing, because growth relies heavily on:

(can't post gif of fan having written "just beleed" on his stomach and "UFC" on his forehead)

those people pay PPV and are turned on by Mcgregor talking **** and such things...

[Eff Pandas]

Dana is saying they aren't selling the UFC, but they are looking to expand to the Asian market & are talking about a deal to do that currently so these rumors could just end up being a partial sale of the company like they did in 2010 when they sold 10% of the UFC to Flash Entertainment. He did imply if someone is looking to spend 4B they'd listen doe & I guess who wouldn't.

And honestly looking at the details of the alleged buyer I have trouble seeing a business man investing 10%+ of his net worth in guys in their underwear hitting each other in the head. You don't become worth tens of billions by spending 10%+ of your net worth on sports franchises. That said spending 1B (3% of this guys alleged net worth) or less to buy 25% or less of a sports franchise seems a lil more reasonable & a more likely businessman type thing to do. So unless this guy just gots a desire to own a fighting franchise as a pet project like many rich guys do with NFL or NBA teams I suspect this is more likely just a certain % buy of the UFC like has happened a few years ago than a true selling of the UFC.

[Rudyo]

Even if this does happen, which I'm doubting now... I'm betting Dana would be part of the deal, so really nothing would noticeably change anyways.

They're not gonna change the rules or make big changes, if someone buys it they'd want continuity.

[Eff Pandas]

Even if this does happen, which I'm doubting now... I'm betting Dana would be part of the deal, so really nothing would noticeably change anyways.

They're not gonna change the rules or make big changes, if someone buys it they'd want continuity.

Dana said in the interview I heard that if the Feritta's are out he's out. They entered together & will exit together.

Having said that its not an uncommon occurrence that when a company is sold they keep on many of the same people in particular the upper management for a couple years to indefinitely so its plausible that if or when a deal got made it would include the Feritta's & Dana sticking around a certain number of years.

If this Asia market stuff is true about the only change I foresee is that there will be a 9th mens division created sometime in the near future. 115lbs.

[////]

Traumatic memories of when K-1 and all those other kickboxing orgs were bought out by Chinese investors.

[Eff Pandas]

More facts starting to come out. Sounds like 11%-15% of Lorenzo Fertitta's or the Fertitta's portion of the UFC will be sold. The upside being that they'll be able to get into the Asian market & obviously getting up to ~$600M for 15% of a company you bought for $2M ain't a bad move either.

There is a lot of speculation that the Fertitta's have interest in buying a NFL team &/or bringing a NFL team to Las Vegas & Lorenzo taking a step back from the UFC could be a first move towards that goal.

[Boxfan83]

For the Fertitta bros its a helluva sale, for MMA fans its a gamble with the sport. I dont see what the Chinese can do differently for the sport to be quite honest or what momentum they can bring more than what UFC already has, the Chinese in general seem to like American brands moreso as an Anomaly more than anything. The asian countries have/had their foot in MMA for such a long time, I dont see how they can get it in any further with ownership unless they have 1000 unknow Yao Mings in lab somewhere trained to fight. I dont see UFC becoming any more popular with new ownership but I dont see it losing anything really either.

[Drunken Cat]

Dana is saying they aren't selling the UFC, but they are looking to expand to the Asian market & are talking about a deal to do that currently so these rumors could just end up being a partial sale of the company like they did in 2010 when they sold 10% of the UFC to Flash Entertainment. He did imply if someone is looking to spend 4B they'd listen doe & I guess who wouldn't.

And honestly looking at the details of the alleged buyer I have trouble seeing a business man investing 10%+ of his net worth in guys in their underwear hitting each other in the head. You don't become worth tens of billions by spending 10%+ of your net worth on sports franchises. That said spending 1B (3% of this guys alleged net worth) or less to buy 25% or less of a sports franchise seems a lil more reasonable & a more likely businessman type thing to do. So unless this guy just gots a desire to own a fighting franchise as a pet project like many rich guys do with NFL or NBA teams I suspect this is more likely just a certain % buy of the UFC like has happened a few years ago than a true selling of the UFC.

Business men like that usually play with other people's money.