Dana White will be the president of the UFC for a long time. The 49-year-old has run the organization since 2001 and just agreed to a new seven-year contract to stay with the company.
Here’s what White had to say about the deal during an interview with Megan Olivi on the UFC’s YouTube channel:
“Ari Emanuel and I just signed a new seven-year deal, too. So we’re here for seven years. ESPN is here for seven years, and the incredible things that we’re going to work on, I just can’t even tell you how pumped I am for all this stuff.”
In 2016, the UFC was sold to WME-IMG by the Fertitta brothers, who originally brought White on. Instead of leaving with his long-time partners, he chose to stay on.
Here’s what he had to say about the sale and staying on:
“After the sale I stayed on and we’ve been working hard for the last two and a half years to take this thing to the next level. That’s why I’m here. I didn’t stay here. It’s not about money. It’s not about any of that stuff.
“I don’t care about any of that stuff. I like to win and I like to take this thing to the next level, the next level, the next level, and it’s what we’ve always done and what we’ll continue to do.”
White has been a huge part of the growth of the UFC and mixed martial arts in general. It’s now a multibillion-dollar organization that now has a huge partnership with ESPN, which should help it continue to grow.
