About the only place you could watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the year 2000, besides buying a ticket to a live event, was on satellite-based pay-per-view. Not cable pay-per-view, but satellite pay-per-view when satellite based subscriptions had yet to hit their full stride.
Then, in January 2001, Zuffa LLC, led by current UFC president and minority owner Dana White, purchased the UFC for $2 million dollars.
Less than 10 years later, the UFC is the Kleenex of mixed martial arts, a juggernaut leading the charge for the sport’s globalization, and estimated by Forbes magazine to be worth more than $1 billion.
People are taking notice, and there is no more galvanizing symbol of that than White’s inclusion in the 2010 polling for TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people. In fact, at the time this article was published on Thursday afternoon, he sat in first place, leading “Twilight” star Robert Patterson, talk show host Conan O’Brien, and even U.S. President Barack Obama.
White has been the man on point for Zuffa ever since its purchase. He’s an outspoken leader that is as comfortable dropping f-bombs in a CNBC interview as he is at a local bar. His brash demeanor and candid delivery has probably made as many enemies as friends for him along the way, but that is also the same quality that has endeared him to fans, who see him as just as much of a star as the fighters who step into his Octagon to fight it out.
Here is how TIME profiled him for voters:
“The sport White champions is officially called mixed-martial arts but he and his partners have successfully branded it Ultimate Fighting, the name of their outfit, and that's how it's almost universally known — to the chagrin of other MMA organizers. By doing so, he has revived a spectacle that had fallen into such disrepute that it was once described as ‘human cockfighting.’ Now, professional boxing wishes it were Ultimate Fighting. White is the UFC's public face, most pugnacious booster, no. 1 tweeter, and irrepressible fan — the ruler of Fight Club.”
Written by -Ken Pishna Thursday, April 01, 2010
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