LAS VEGAS -- The COVID-19 pandemic was disastrous for many American businesses. Ones that were thriving pre-pandemic either didn't make it through and went under or came out terribly damaged. That, though, is not the case for the UFC.
The company not only survived it, it thrived, and its CEO points to its performance during the pandemic as one of the reasons 2023 was its best year on record.
UFC CEO Dana White said that 2023 is the best year for the company that now has a valuation north of $12 billion. The UFC sold more tickets, sold out more shows and had more people watch on television than ever before.
The UFC's growth hasn't plateaued yet, and White raised his hand at a sharp angle to show what he believes the company's trajectory is in the near-future.
"This year was special, and I think next year is going to be special again because as we start to get back out on the road ... we're going to hit these places we haven't been in a long time and the demand is there," White said.
It would be incorrect to call the UFC anything but a massive success story as 2020 dawned. The pandemic hit the U.S. in early 2020 and it was horrendous for all types of businesses. White was literally climbing the walls as government restrictions forced businesses to shut down because of it. He vowed to be the first sport back and then made that a reality when UFC 249 was held sans fans on May 9, 2020, at VyStar Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla.
There was much consternation about whether the UFC could pull it off safely, and White said many major media outlets tried repeatedly to get his cards shut down once he finally made the decision to come back. White said he was reticent to say publicly where shows were going because reporters would call state and local officials and pressure them to not allow the event.
The UFC created the first bubble, and it allowed the show to go on. Oddly, though, it helped the company grow at an even more rapid pace than anticipated. White is always optimistic, but the growth during the COVID era was even beyond his expectation.
"Man, we were doing fights that should have done 350,000 [pay-per-view sales] and they wound up doing a million," White said. "There was nothing else on."
That helped create new fans the promotion might not have reached, and led, White believes, to the extraordinary year that was 2023. It got to be a joke among reporters who regularly cover the UFC in 2023 when White would attend the post-fight press conference and announce the show as a sell-out with an arena records.
According to financial documents, the UFC generated $611.9 million in the first two quarters of 2023 in media rights and content, live events, sponsorship and consumer product licensing.
From any metric, from ticket sales to TV ratings to sponsorships, the UFC had an extraordinary year in 2023.
According to information provided by the UFC, in 2023 the company:
• Sold out 20 events and set live gate records in nine. It owns the three biggest gates in Madison Square Garden history, and hit No. 2 with UFC 295 in November.
• Signed the biggest sponsorship deal in company history, when Anheuser-Busch signed on in a deal worth in excess of $100 million.
• Set a company record in sponsorship revenue, which increased 25 percent over 2022.
• UFC Fight Pass, the company's streaming service set a record for most subscribers in its history following UFC 294 in October. The UFC did not, however, release numbers.
• Viewership for pay-per-view preliminary cards on ESPN linear networks were at their highest-average ever.
• Average viewership for pay-per-view preliminaries was up 35 percent versus 2022.
• Noche UFC was the most streamed Fight Night card ever on ESPN+.
• The UFC's YouTube channel had 1.9 billion views.
• Traffic on UFC.com was the most ever, with 115.2 million visits.
• UFC collectibles sales was up 100 percent from 2022.
• Licensed apparel placement at retail increased over 50 percent from 2022 levels.
The UFC's growth, White said, will be fueled by improvements in technology.
"As technology continues to get better, the UFC continues to get bigger," White said. "We can reach more people. Back in the day when I did this, the original deal, I'd have to go out and cut a million deals all over the world for distribution. Some would be on at different times and this and that. Now, with streaming, it's pretty much same time, same channel everywhere all over the world. Maybe there's three different ones, but this is the closest we've ever been to one stream."
White's belief with streaming is that eventually it will consolidate and there will be a small handful of players world-wide, like Netflix, Amazon, ESPN, Google and perhaps Apple. He said that may be as short as five years away.
Amazon has been slowly moving into the sports space on its Prime Video service. It's in its second year of NFL rights, with Thursday Night Football, and has been streaming ONE Championship matches for several years. It recently announced a deal with the Premier Boxing Champions that will begin in March 2024.
The UFC's deal with ESPN, which has been extraordinarily lucrative for the promotion, will expire in 2025. Sports Business Journal reported in the summer that White and ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro were going to start talks shortly on a new deal.
But White told keviniole.com in his office on Thursday that the UFC will talk with all interested parties, including Amazon. Amazon has rights to other sports, such as boxing, outside the U.S., but its play in the sports space to this point has been measured.
"You can look at some of the things Amazon's done and think whatever [about them], but it's all about when rights become available," White said. "That's when you're going to see people making big moves. Who's going to be first to be the big, dominant player out there [in streaming sports]? I actually have been saying for a long time that I'm blown away that Netflix didn't get into sports sooner. What YouTube did [securing the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket] was brilliant."
White was effusive about the year past but even moreso about the year ahead. Growth will have to slow eventually, but he doesn't seem to think that's happening anytime soon.
"Buckle up, man," he said of the UFC's plans for 2024. "This is going to be something."