Dana White, the UFC guy, wants people to think he’s “right down the middle politically,” which, nobody thinks that, because he’s not, and that’s OK, it’s a free country, support who you want to support, but he’s not “down the middle,” not even close.
“I respect whoever is the President of the United States. It isn’t about red or blue or politics for me,” White said, dismissing the idea that “UFC Freedom 250,” which is being staged at the White House on June 14 – not coincidentally, on the 80th birthday of one Donald Trump – is at all political.
It’s not good business, that’s for sure – UFC’s parent company, TKO Group Holdings, is projecting that it will take a net loss of roughly $30 million on the event.
But what’s a mere $30 million one-day business loss among friends, right?
Trump, endorsed by Dana White in each of his three presidential runs, gets a bloodsport spectacle on the taxpayers’ front lawn; and the suits at TKO Group Holdings, Dana White and the people who own the company, get another chance to rub elbows with the grifters currently running the country.
Let’s not pretend that the rubbing elbows part of this isn’t political.
That $30 million TKO is going to lose putting this show on is an investment.
TKO had already sold its political soul through its WWE entity, which signed a $1 billion deal with the Saudi royal family, a key Trump foreign ally, to run live shows in the kingdom that runs through 2027 – incidentally, WWE will stage its annual “WrestleMania” event in Saudi Arabia next year, for a reported $250 million.
The company somehow got $7.7 billion over seven years from Paramount Skydance, owned by Trump media ally David Ellison, for UFC’s TV and pay-per-view rights.
I’m not criticizing TKO or White there at all; if somebody wants to dramatically overpay for your services, by all means, let ‘em.
I get that the Saudis are into sportswashing – they’re overpaying for WWE, like they overpaid for LIV Golf, and bought up a ton of the globe’s top soccer players to play in their domestic leagues, and paid through the wazoo for top comedians to do a local comedy festival, because they’re trying to soften their image, which is a hard sell, when your image is, 9/11 hijackers and bonesaws.
Some of what we see as sportswashing is also just plain ol’ buying clout.
We have to hope, for Ellison’s sake, that he’s getting some clout out of what he’s doing, because taking on $79 billion in debt as part of its $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery is next-level dumb business-wise, when you consider the shelf life of his effort to build a MAGA-centric media and entertainment ecosystem – against a backdrop of, the MAGA-verse is very much in decline, if not outright freefall.
When you’re the son of a billionaire, you don’t really ever fail – you just file for bankruptcy and move on to the next money-burning venture.
TKO Group Holdings, for its part in this, has a more modest debt load – just under $5 billion – but that’s been enough to dictate to WWE that it cut salaries for its top talents; and then, UFC has, notoriously, and for many years, been the focus of criticism from its top performers that they don’t share in the success of the company that profits from them beating each other’s brains in.
And here they are, the folks at TKO, putting on an event that will lose another $30 million – while their wrestlers are taking pay cuts, and their MMA fighters aren’t even making enough to have to have their pay cut.
But, oh, no, it’s not about politics – this spectacle on the White House lawn, on the would-be dictator’s birthday, that they’re paying for by underpaying the people putting their bodies on the line.
If you wonder why I can be so hard on Tony Khan, the other son of a billionaire blowing through his dad’s money trying to make it in the sports business, through his All Elite Wrestling startup, it’s because TK is, if not an out-and-out progressive, enough of a center-left to be a counterbalance to the likes of the MAGAs like David Ellison, Dana White and the other suits at TKO.
As much fun as it has to be to play with his real-life wrestling figures, there are bigger fish for Tony Khan to fry here.
Video
Support AFP
Share
Chris Graham
