Latest / In Search Of Excellence / Dana White on Suga Sean O'Malley, Conor McGregor, and Building the UFC Podcast Interview | E112

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Dana White on Suga Sean O'Malley, Conor McGregor, and Building the UFC Podcast Interview | E112 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Dana White: was Keenan Ivory Wayans and he had Joe Rogan on and Joe Rogan was talking about the UFC and I saw him talking earlier about God people would say what made you bring the fear factor guy in and and do all the shit I fucking saw Joe Rogan speaking about the UFC and I was like, that's the fucking guy need Conor McGregor. He's like, Yeah, I know him. We've been watching them. I'm blown away by this kid. So we leave each other that night, I get in the car and I called the Renzo, I said, Let me tell you what, I don't know if this kid can fight or not.
• 0:24
  Dana White: But if he can even throw a punch, he's gonna be a huge fucking superstar. If you really want to build your business and you want your business become successful, the early years, you're a slave to your company, it was very, very weird. You want to talk about dark, nothing darker than the whole COVID Bullshit, everybody rolled over.
• 0:37
  Dana White: And everybody was willing to say, okay, everything that we worked so hard for, we're willing to lay off fucking massive percentages of their fucking companies, people who have been with them for fucking years, people who miss kids practices Miss kids plays to help build this fucking business, you just become a number on a fucking spreadsheet that has to go away, you're listening to part two of my amazing conversation with Dana White, the greatest sports promoter in history and the president of the UFC. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first. Now, without further ado, here's part two with the amazing Dana White.
• 1:16
  Randall Kaplan: We'll get into some of the numbers a little bit more detail later. But the cliffnotes version is you sold the company 2016 for $4 billion.
• 1:22
  Randall Kaplan: And that ended up being 166.68% compounded annual turnover a 15 year period of time, which is absolutely nuts.
• 1:32
  Randall Kaplan: What are the three main elements that contributed to the ultimate success of that business? If you can name three factors? Yeah, a couple things. None. First and foremost, the live event.
• 1:47
  Dana White: If you come to a UFC live event, we've got this thing so dialed in. And so nobody leaves a UFC live event goes, Yeah, I don't ever want to see one of these again,
• 1:55
  Randall Kaplan: you invited us last time I started, I was unbelievable. Like, this is fucking awesome. The live
• 2:00
  Dana White: event is, is whatever. And the other thing is, it's very easy to lose sight. When everything starts to happen, and you start to make money and the company grows, and you get all these ancillary things that spin off the brand, whether it's gyms, merchandise, video games, whatever it might be. And then you get caught up in the bullshit with movies and TV shows and all this other stuff that if you stay focused, it's the only thing I care about. I stay focused on who we are. And what it is we really do the core of the business. And what that is, is finding young up and coming talent put putting on the fights that matter and the fights that people want to see. And then the live and television production. That's what I focus on. As long as you stay focused to what your the core of your business is. All that other shit means nothing.
• 3:00
  Dana White: Without the core being intact and being in place. And I'm literally a psycho about that stuff.
• 3:08
  Randall Kaplan: When you sold that company for $4 billion. Did you ever think back to when you were a doorman? Making? $150 a day? What were your dreams as a kid? And did you ever imagine your wildest dreams you'd be worth $400 million and built one of the most successful sports franchises in history.
• 3:25
  Dana White: The weird thing about me is I have no rearview mirrors on life. I don't fucking look back on anything. I don't look back on anything. There's things that will pop on my head and be like, I remember that and shit. But as far as the business is concerned, I don't think like that. I don't think like people say, you have to think about what you created and what you've done and all this other shit and your legacy. And now I'm thinking about what are we doing in three years? It's not big enough. It's not we haven't reached a potential. You know, everybody. Everybody's full of shit. can't fucking listen to anybody when we sold. Everybody said that Ari overpaid for this thing. He got fucking screwed and, and this was the dumbest purchase of all time. The UFC had peaked. These are the these are the people that no nothing.
• 4:10
  Dana White: They literally know nothing about this business. And it's the people that are supposed to be the experts and there is no fucking there's one fucking expert. Okay? And he said in fucking right here, okay. We blazed the path for this thing.
• 4:27
  Dana White: We were still doing shit that has never been done in this space before. So all these guys who claim to be experts and claim to know don't know jack shit about our fucking business, okay. And all I think about is next year and the year after next year and I'm thinking about we are so far from hitting the ceiling of what this thing is gonna be. It's like power slap.
• 4:52
  Dana White: You know, everybody was shitting on Power Stop. 614 months old,
• 4:59
  Randall Kaplan: 14 months You're still shitting on it
• 5:01
  Dana White: still shitting on it. I love it. You should not it should not haters. It's the same thing that happened to the UFC people can't wrap their head around the fact that this is the kind of hate UFC gotten the bat and the old days. It's exactly the same. But these are the do nothing. No, nothing. Fucking media guys, when you talk about media, right? What have they done? What have they ever built?
• 5:23
  Dana White: Who's ever dependent on them for a fucking paycheck? What are they an expert on? What the fuck have they done? That can that they consider themselves to be an expert on anything? Ever?
• 5:34
  Dana White: Right? You're giving an opinion?
• 5:39
  Dana White: You might have an opinion.
• 5:39
  Dana White: Everybody's got a fucking opinion. But you're you're no expert about anything that has anything to do with business, because you've never fucking done it.
• 5:49
  Randall Kaplan: What's your message to all the kids out there? Not only kids, but young professionals, even people in their 30s and 40s, who have a dream and talk to the Bellman now working with the four seasons. What's your message to that guy today? About if anything's possible, everything
• 6:03
  Dana White: is possible.
• 6:03
  Dana White: Everything is possible. It's one of the things that I love the most about this country. There's two things, you have the American Dream, which is fucking absolutely real. The American dream is incredible. If you have the right idea in the right place at the right time, and you work hard enough, it will absolutely happen for you, right. And then I look at Las Vegas as like a little America, because Las Vegas is the land of opportunity this city. It doesn't matter where you came from, what college you went to, if you didn't go to college, who you know who you don't know, when you come to Vegas, there's just so much opportunity here, right? This is a city that you can go out with $100 in your pocket. Have the greatest fucking night of your life and come home with $1,000 in your pocket. You know what I mean? I love that about the city. This city is the anything is possible. They talk about New York city that never sleeps.
• 7:00
  Dana White: I've been in New York many times they fucking sleep. This city does not fucking sleep. And this place is 24 hours action. The greatest shopping the greatest restaurants, the greatest entertainment. Everything is in this city. Every fucking night.
• 7:14
  Dana White: If you follow me on Instagram. I come around the corner in Summerlin. And there's this view of the entire city. And every night when I drive home, I just have this moment of like, fucking gratefulness. And this unbelievable clarity where I'm just like, God, damn, I love this fucking city. I'm so lucky.
• 7:35
  Dana White: I just had the greatest day of my life. And I've had many fucking great days in my life.
• 7:39
  Dana White: And that's how I feel every night when I drive home. I literally video it like this while I'm driving. And I post another amazing day in the greatest fucking city in the world. And I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. And every day I jump out of bed ready to kick some fucking ass.
• 7:58
  Dana White: And every night when I drive home, I just turned that corner and I go, I just had the greatest day ever. I
• 8:05
  Randall Kaplan: love it. In the success and growth of any business. I think there's always one or two things that really kind of Prop us up. It's kind of a fulcrum right. Our company or tech company nearly died so many times. Tell us about your trip to New York going through those tapes. Wayland Kenan Whelan and fear factor and I every Kenyan when I every Kenyan Wayans and then I think a lot of people don't know how important Joe Rogan has been to the
• 8:34
  Dana White: dean and everyone.
• 8:34
  Dana White: Yeah, we both fucked his name up. Yeah. But sorry, can ya?
• 8:36
  Dana White: Keenan Ivory Wayans so I when we bought the company, it was a huge shit show. I had to fly to New York and pack up the office.
• 8:46
  Dana White: There was one employee me and fly to New York unpack the office and put everything in boxes all the shit that I thought was important or could be important and ship it back and the stuff that wasn't thrown away and get rid of it. So I'm literally you go into office to fucking tape stacked up to the roof. I don't know what's VHS could be possible. Exactly.
• 9:06
  Dana White: Yeah. Could be possible something that's important what was inside to sit there for fucking hours popping every tape and and seeing what it was. And one of the things that I popped in? Was Keenan Ivory Wayans. He had a talk show. And he had Joe Rogan on and Joe Rogan was talking about the UFC. And I saw it. You were talking earlier about gut. And I mean, most people would say what made you bring the fear factor guy in and do all the shit I fucking saw. I saw Joe Rogan, speaking about the UFC. And I was like, that's the fucking guy need on the broadcast. And I ended up reaching out to Joe and Joe was one of the one of the greatest decisions I ever made my entire career. So, um, yeah, but anyway, I had to buck and pack the office up and ship all the ship back and, and but through that process and you know, I found Joe Rogan
• 10:14
  Randall Kaplan: HBO didn't innovate, you did talk to us about some of the things that you did. And some of the things that they didn't do that made you Well, I think leaped them by a million years. Well,
• 10:26
  Dana White: one of the things that they did is like they would always want to, it was always quiet as like, like, like they were church. While while the guys were standing up there talking at our event, the music's fucking blast on the back, the guys are screaming in the microphone, because there's fucking energy in that place, man. And what's what happened early on was like boxing and even the UFC guys in the old days, they didn't give a shit about the live event. All they cared about was the television production, right? No, you're running two shows at the same time. Actually, the people that are live vent are paying way more money than the people that are buying a TV or sitting home on your fucking couch. You just clicked it on for 50 bucks or whatever the fuck it costs, right. And the people there, some of them flew in from other countries, they had flights, they got rooms that pay for their food, all their shit, they should have a great experience.
• 11:16
  Dana White: Right? So this was always my thought process about the live fights. Now you still see it today. Try and watch a boxing event these guys 35 minute gaps in between fights. And these guys talking about the same shit over and over. When you watch the UFC. It moves it flies fight after fight after fight after fight. There's no dead time, there's always energy and it's like a fucking roller coaster ride, right? Like this the whole night. And what I do is I sell HOLY SHIT moments, right? So whether you're home, watching with your friends at home, or you're in a bar, or you're at the live event, there's going to be these moments where you all jump out of your seat at the same time. And all these set you look at each other and the great energy and the buzz that you get. That's what we do with the live event, the production, you know if you're at home, or if you're in bars, every one of them is a different experience.
• 12:14
  Randall Kaplan: years ago, this was seven weeks before you
• 12:17
  Dana White: and then the other thing when you're asking about production The other thing that we do is there's always new technology that comes out in production. We're always first or one of the first to jump on new tech technology to try to integrate into our production that I feel HBO never did. HBO fucking Showtime. the shittiest fucking organization of all time when it came to live combat sports they fucking suck at what they do. These guys offices are lined with Emmys how many fucking Emmys I got to use how many Emmys my guys should have my production guys you should be stepping over fucking Emmys when you walk through my office but that's it's all political anyway, but Showtime one fucking Emmys the worst fucking production guys of all time.
• 13:05
  Dana White: Anyway, I had to throw that in.
• 13:07
  Dana White: I like shitting on Showtime.
• 14:02
  Randall Kaplan: There's a guy, Ireland guy who's making $233 a week on welfare checks. And you meet him over there one day. And then you call Lorenzo and you say hey, would you tell him at that point in time? No, no,
• 14:17
  Dana White: no. So what happened was, I went over to Ireland, I received some award from one of the colleges over there. And I went out that was when social media first started. I had Twitter. So I told all the fans meet me at the bar. Tonight. I'm buying drinks, luck and all these people show up. Everybody keeps talking about this guy Conor McGregor, Conor McGregor, Conor McGregor, for some reason, whatever it was, I don't know why. I was drinking too. But I thought he was a heavyweight. So I come back and I tell Sean Shelby, our matchmaker, I said this kid Conor McGregor. He's like, Yeah, I know him. We've been watching them. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, we end up signing him. So he flies out to Vegas, and he and I go to dinner together. And I'm fucking like, I'm blown away by this kid.
• 14:59
  Dana White: Right? So we leave each other that night, I get in the car and I called the Renzo, I said, Let me tell you what, I don't know if this kid can fight or not.
• 15:06
  Dana White: But if he can even throw a punch, he's going to be a huge fucking superstar. And, you know, the story of Conor McGregor being on welfare and all this other stuff. It's just another thing that goes to show.
• 15:22
  Dana White: You can take somebody that didn't go to college and then Connors, a tremendous businessman. I mean, Connor is one of the best partners if not the best partner we've ever had, when it comes to being in business for somebody. And if you look at all the brands that he is built off of his brand, very, very sharp kid, and when you hear him speak, he's very articulate about fighting and again, when you talk about fighter IQ Like Tyson, Connor spider IQ is off the charts. So
• 15:55
  Randall Kaplan: many leagues need star power to grow. You got a golf you got Tiger Woods. You had Michael Jordan forever.
• 16:01
  Randall Kaplan: LeBron James, can you tell everybody just how important that is to have your superstar and is sugar Sean O'Malley, who was on my show sitting here in your chair? Is he the next Conor McGregor?
• 16:13
  Dana White: Um, yeah, I think everything's based on star power. And you will have this circulation of stars that come in and out of the company. But absolutely, I mean, started with Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes and, you know, then got we went through Anderson Silva and George St. Pierre. And then you get into Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor era deaths. They're all key and they all built different segments of, of the business right? Conor ignited Europe like crazy, and then got to a point where the rest of the world became Conor McGregor, France, Ronda Rousey showed what was possible for women. And now the women's fighting is, you know, the fight on UFC 300 between Wally Zhang and Yan. Gonna be a badass fight. These women are very tactical and absolutely badass. And, yeah, it's we just built the pie Performance Institute down in Mexico, the amount of talent we're going to be ripping out of Mexico for the next three to five years. It's going to be off the charts. And yeah, it's all star driven.
• 17:22
  Randall Kaplan: So many people think kind of McGregor is the greatest UFC fighter of all time you don't who who is your who you said someone in particular is the greatest
• 17:33
  Dana White: fighter. McGregor is the biggest superstar in the UFC ever.
• 17:36
  Randall Kaplan: Who's the best fighter you've
• 17:37
  Dana White: ever had? John Jones, John Jones is the greatest. You could actually call him the greatest fighter of all time. Because if you when you talk about styles, you know what do you know what he does to a boxer in a real fight? Him awesome, right. John Jones is one of the baddest human beings to ever walk the face of the earth. So
• 17:58
  Randall Kaplan: I'm a football fan grew up in Detroit was a long suffering Detroit Lions family to a phenomenal year.
• 18:05
  Randall Kaplan: Kliff. Kingsbury, who is my second guest on the show is also a good friend. He was coach of the Cardinals, John's brother played for the Cardinals. And my wife and I have very good seats, thanks to Cliff. Just dude sitting next to me. Everyone's coming up to me, it was annoying a shit. The aisle. I'm here, my wife is here and everyone's reaching over. Right? Hey, you know, take a photo, take a photo. So halftime rolls around and said, Hey, man, like, can you tell me what's going on here? Didn't I wasn't a fight fans knew nothing about them didn't recognize them. And we had a really nice conversation.
• 18:39
  Randall Kaplan: They said, Yeah, you know, you want to take a picture with a guy could not have been any nicer if you tried. Who wasn't?
• 18:45
  Randall Kaplan: John Jones?
• 18:46
  Dana White: Oh, John Jones.
• 18:47
  Randall Kaplan: You sit next to me. I couldn't have said who all these people were 100 people are coming. It was so fucking annoying. I'm trying to watch the game. Right? Right. But you know what? He shook everyone's hand took a picture with every single person. A it didn't bother him one bit. He could not have been any nicer. It's
• 19:03
  Dana White: one of the greatest things about our sport, too, is that that the fans? It's everybody's very approachable.
• 19:09
  Dana White: And if you show up at a UFC event, and you're a fan of somebody, you're probably going to meet him and you're probably gonna get a picture with him.
• 19:15
  Dana White: You know, that? You can't say that in the NBA or the NFL or anything. Any other sport?
• 19:21
  Randall Kaplan: What's the greatest fight of all time?
• 19:22
  Dana White: Fight? Yeah, that's a tough one. Because we've had so many incredible fights to to pick just one and say that was the best, almost impossible to do.
• 19:32
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about money, which I think is a great motivator for so many people.
• 19:34
  Randall Kaplan: You made reportedly $40 million on the first sale. We make a lot of money today. You said that first sale fuck you felt like it was a divorce was the end of something. And you had a conversation with Rob Dyrdek.
• 19:48
  Randall Kaplan: What did he tell you? And why did you think you were fucked up? Because that's everyone's dream. You made hundreds of millions of dollars. And for so many people, it's everything.
• 19:58
  Dana White: I'm trying to remember what the Rob Dyrdek story is. Derek and I have talked about a lot of things.
• 20:03
  Dana White: You know, Derek is, is a partner of mine and through one another company that me in the Fertitta zone, Rob, but I wouldn't say that it was I had a conversation, the problem that I had when we sold this, I didn't want to sell, I had enough money. I, I I'm not motivated by money. I'm motivated by winning, I like to win. And when you win, money is what happens. You know what I mean? And when I got I was bummed out that the guy wouldn't be working with the fruitiness again, every day. I was just a weird place when that whole thing happened. And Lorenzo basically said to me, Dana, I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to move on, be happy for me and my best friend be happy for me and that's what sort of woke me up and I said, What do I say to that? Right? I get it. And and then it was more of a worry about who am I getting into business with next? Because nobody would buy the company unless I stayed. That was nobody was buying this thing unless I agreed to stay for a certain period of time. So the question was, Who am I going to be in business with next? What ended up being our Emanuel Patrick Whitesell, and
• 21:23
  Randall Kaplan: endeavor agency, which is the largest or second largest talent agency in the world, the largest, the largest, and
• 21:29
  Dana White: now it is, yeah. I, I I'm having a blast. Me and we work really well together patch white cells, a fucking stud. And I, I love it. You know, I'm having as much fun if not more fun than I had in the past, I have more opportunity to do a lot of other things that I want to do. I'm not just in this in this UFC box. I mean, I own a ton of other businesses. And you know, I get to I'm having a blast. Yeah, so it couldn't have turned out any better. You know, I was worried and I was all caught up in and, you know, I was like, oh, fuck, I thought we were gonna go on and do something else together, which I'm still hearing, we're still doing tons of shit together. So it couldn't have worked out any better.
• 22:22
  Randall Kaplan: A lot of fighters fight because they want to be great fighters. A lot of fighters fight for the money.
• 22:26
  Randall Kaplan: Can you be a great fighter? If you're in it for the money?
• 22:29
  Dana White: Yeah, I think that, you know, money fucks everything up. At the end of the day, you have to be a certain type of person to not let money fuck you up. I'll give you an example.
• 22:45
  Dana White: Like our company was like sort of a Microsoft. There were people that had a percentage of the thing. Most of those people when we sold, retired and left and you know, when that nothing or whatever the fuck they're doing. I could never do that.
• 23:04
  Dana White: Because it was never about the money for me. Anyway, I love doing this. I love building brands. I love taking things that people say can't be done and doing it. But I get it for people that are above it. It's always a thing. It's like when you and I are grown up not so much anymore these days. But when you and I were growing up there was like, Yeah, I'm gonna fucking retire and sit on that beach with a pina colada and all that bullshit. How many fucking days you're gonna sit on the beach, and drink fucking pina coladas before you lose your mind. Right. It's just, I just went on vacation. I didn't want to go. I went to Costa Rica with my family. My my daughter. My daughter is the only one that can get me to do shit that I don't want to do. So she wanted to go to Costa Rica. I didn't want to go to Costa Rica. I ended up in Costa Rica. And I had a fucking blast. It was a great trip. Four Seasons love.
• 23:54
  Dana White: No, we rented a house down there. Okay. Yeah, the four seasons. Yeah, we rented a house down by the Four Seasons. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what we're and after day fucking for.
• 24:08
  Dana White: I was like, if I put some lotion on my fucking skin one more time, and sit out in the sun one more time, I'm gonna lose my mind. So it was like the perfect amount of time to go, relax, and then come home. But these people that think they want to retire, and you start doing that shit and do it every day and, and not stay in the game, and not get up and have to stress and worry about shit every day. That's what I love. I love that shit.
• 24:34
  Dana White: I'm never gonna retire, ever. I will die working.
• 24:38
  Randall Kaplan: What motivates you today the most?
• 24:42
  Dana White: Um, again, I like to win. So the way that I look at my life is I say to myself, How can I be better today than I was yesterday? In every aspect of my life. How can I be a better person? How can I be in better shape? How can I? How can I run the business better? How can we you know, how can we make this promo better than the last fucking promo? We did? How can we make this fucking fight better than last? What's why every year? Every single year 23 fucking years in a row. We beat the year before every year. And then we're coming out of the year and I'm like, I don't know.
• 25:19
  Dana White: This might be the end of the fucking run. I don't know how are we beat last year? And we do because I'm always focused on what's next. And how do we get better than we were yesterday?
• 25:31
  Randall Kaplan: You said about money fucking fucking people up.
• 25:34
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah. So yeah,
• 25:36
  Dana White: I go off track. You got to pull me back on the fucking tracks every once in a while. So when you're a fighter, you know and you come into the sport and you want to. You want to win a world title and you want to do this and you want to do that. Then you start to make millions of dollars. It's impossible to be the same type of fighter you were you're not as hungry as you were, and all this other stuff unless you are wired a certain way. And the guy that I always think about with this is Tom Brady. Tom Brady took less money. Right. Tom Brady was the is the greatest quarterback of all time. I don't know if Tom Brady was ever the highest paid quarterback. When he was on his run. You didn't see him running around doing endorsements and all this other shit. He focused on football, he focused on winning. He focused on staying with a group of people that were that were focused on building a dynasty.
• 26:33
  Dana White: He would take less money so that they could bring more good players in and build a great team. Then once he hit that goat status, right, and it could not be denied any more than he's the greatest of all time. Look at the shit he's doing now. He's got endorsements like fucking did a do a fucking half a billion dollar deal with Fox for commentating amazing, right right now he's making all the money based off everything that he has worked on for the left always took care of his body.
• 27:04
  Dana White: Never fucking, you know, partied and did all that shit. I don't know if you could do it any better than Tom Brady did.
• 27:12
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah. And it's the real deal. I was at a wedding and Baker's bay in the Bahamas. And Tom was essentially the best man. And he was there.
• 27:20
  Randall Kaplan: He wasn't drinking with all the Patriots for like, plus Walker was there. Danny Amendola was there, these guys are whipping it up. Tom and Giselle went to bed. He was there at nine o'clock. He's like guys gotta go in every morning, before anyone waking up. He's with his trainer every single day. You saw it on the beach. And that guy travels everywhere. Yeah, I mean, that's the real, that's real deal. And you talk about fucking money fucking people up, or a technology company had a lot of young programmers who were in college. And they got stock options. There were a couple of kids who are 18 years old, 19 years old. And in one case, he made $50 million as a 19 year old, right? He was there early got 10,000 shares of stock, we had a split of 18.6 to one. And you can do the math right? When our stock is at $345 a share.
• 28:15
  Randall Kaplan: You know, you never know where people sell their stock, right?
• 28:18
  Randall Kaplan: You got lockups, and you're still working at the company.
• 28:22
  Randall Kaplan: But these guys made a ton of money. Most of them dropped out of school. And it's it's sad, very sad to see. So people think money is great, but it can be a curse as well. Not not not all wealthy people are happier. I know. So many fucking rich people were the most miserable motherfuckers I've ever met in the world.
• 28:40
  Dana White: Money is a tool to have fun. If you look at it any other way, you're fucked up. I don't worship money. I money. I don't I've given away more money than I thought I'd ever fucking make. To be honest with you, number one. Number two, if you are miserable in life, period, you're really going to be fucking miserable when you get a bunch of money. Okay, because there's a lot of a lot of problems that come with money if that's the way you think. I don't ever fucking chase money or I'm not a big money guy.
• 29:09
  Dana White: Listen, I knock in money when he is absolutely fun to have and you can do a lot. You're not sweating the fucking light bill.
• 29:18
  Dana White: You're not I mean of the car payment next month, but life is about memories and experience.
• 29:30
  Dana White: Right when you're out when you have kids. When I'm gone, and my wife has gone, all you have left are your kids are going to remember things that you did together experiences that you had, and time that was spent.
• 29:44
  Dana White: That's what money is awesome for creating these memories and experiences with people that you care about that when you're gone. First of all, you experienced them and got to do them. Yeah. And then when you're gone, these are all the things that that they remember. And even on a much smaller scale with the type of money that we had growing up. My mother would always make sure that every summer we spent like two weeks at the beach. And those two weeks at the beach, when I look back on it are some of the greatest memories I have as a kid. You know what I mean?
• 30:20
  Dana White: That's what fucking life is about.
• 30:22
  Randall Kaplan: When I've got five kids, three and college seniors twins who are graduating Wisconsin and Cornell, my son he met goes to Medical College.
• 30:28
  Randall Kaplan: He's a sophomore, we got a seven year old and a three year old.
• 30:31
  Randall Kaplan: And one thing I did with all my kids starting at six years old, one on one trips, you're busy, I'm busy. There's always a million reasons not to go. And as a dad, it's one of the most special successful things that I've done. I mean, these trips that we take are incredible. And as your kids get older, and you know this as well, they're in college, they got their friends, it's Hard to see them. And like one of my friends said, Well, you bribe them with these good trips. I mean, I don't give a shit what I'm bribing them with.
• 30:58
  Randall Kaplan: But if I get to spend a week with my kids, without any phones, I mean, still on their phones, but just dad and daughters and Dad and son, I mean, my son comes out here we go once here in Las Vegas. We raised Ferraris out on that track. He likes to shoot guns, we go shooting guns. Yeah, we went to your show, we played golf, at Summit when when we were here. It was just, you know, one of the greatest, he said, that is the greatest weekend that I've ever had. And these memories are incredible.
• 31:22
  Randall Kaplan: And you don't need to have money to do it.
• 31:28
  Dana White: I agree. I agree.
• 31:28
  Dana White: Listen to hanging out and spending time with your kids is probably the fucking greatest thing that you will ever do in life. And I say this all the time we fail. In life, we fail in life, we make mistakes, and we do things. One thing you can't fail out as being a parent. I mean, that's the one thing that you really have to and I gotta give my wife a lot of credit. My wife's Italian, she's fucking crazy Italian. You know, everything. shouldn't give a shit about any of this stuff could give a fuck about any of this. She is all about the family and the family doing things together in the family.
• 32:00
  Dana White: You know, that's, that's her life. She don't give a shit about anything else.
• 32:07
  Randall Kaplan: When we talk about success, one of the main ingredients of my own success is something I call extreme preparation. So that means when someone's preparing for a meeting or a podcast, they spend one hour 30 minutes I'm spending 10 hours for a meeting with Marriott and my beaches company called Sandy we built a yacht for beaches, have cataloged over 100 categories of data with 100,000 beaches and 212 countries. We had a meeting with Marriott. That's brilliant.
• 32:31
  Randall Kaplan: Thank you. So we had a meeting with Marriott. And I love cold calling right I go to these conferences. I cold call the kid I sold T shirts, door to door CEO of Marriott at the Milken conference out in Los Angeles. I waited. I mean, I hover, right.
• 32:47
  Randall Kaplan: I just wait for her to speak and Oh, nice to meet you. I company Sandy. They knew my tech company very well, which I'm very lucky.
• 32:54
  Randall Kaplan: It gives me a sort of a brand in credibility. I told her about the idea just like you, she said the same thing. We set up a meeting. And when she set up the meeting, it's with six senior people or I got a senior vice president, I look on LinkedIn, 14 years. Like that's a fucking great. I mean, Marissa, we want a sponsorship, maybe global sponsorship or a startup we had, what do we have at that point four or five people? We have 13 people now. And I mean, the fucking greatest thing where to get married. And all these people on the phone, usually it doesn't happen that way. Right?
• 33:25
  Randall Kaplan: You get somebody they get someone else, someone else. We prepared 70 hours I went through, I'm not exaggerating, 50 versions of that PowerPoint.
• 33:35
  Randall Kaplan: It blew me away. We didn't get the deal. I don't give a shit.
• 33:40
  Randall Kaplan: Right. And they said, This is the best presentation that we've ever seen. We will get Marriott at some point and it'll be a 10 times better deal. For us.
• 33:47
  Randall Kaplan: Sometimes the best deals you have are the deals that you don't do. But talk to me how extreme preparation has been a central element of your career.
• 33:58
  Randall Kaplan: How have you prepared more than any other person for certain things that you've done? Yeah,
• 34:03
  Dana White: preparation is everything. I was actually just in a funk. It's funny. You're hitting me with all this weird shit today was just in a meeting about two hours ago with a fucking guy who didn't prepare for the fucking meeting and disaster. The fucking joke? No, he came to me pitching to me.
• 34:17
  Dana White: And I hit him with the fucking the low hanging fruit questions, okay, that he should rip off the top of his head. And I literally was like, this is a fucking joke that this guy even had the balls to show up to this fucking meeting. And talk to me about this and have no no fucking data. No, no answers for my questions. And he should know more about the fucking product than I should. Right.
• 34:42
  Randall Kaplan: I'm pleased to kick them out.
• 34:45
  Dana White: You know, I won't even tell you on the thing. What happened with a nice
• 34:48
  Randall Kaplan: if you didn't kick him out? So, man, we met some brutal meetings. Office.
• 34:51
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, brutal get out man.
• 34:55
  Dana White: I hate that shit. I hate people that don't that come in and, and don't prepare properly for fucking meetings. I have a meeting on Monday in LA.
• 35:02
  Dana White: And I've been prepping for it for fucking 10 days now. You know, going ripping through every number, making sure that when I walk in that fucking room, I'm the smartest guy in the room on this subject. You know, any questions they ask?
• 35:17
  Dana White: I'm gonna have the answers for questions. They don't ask. I'm gonna have the answers for ya.
• 35:24
  Dana White: It's it's everything. But that's the thing about about the fight business when I end up in a room with somebody. Nobody's going to ask me if I can question that. I don't know. I know more than they know. Because I'm actually the one building this thing. You know what I mean? We're doing shit that has never been done before.
• 35:41
  Randall Kaplan: Extreme preparation is everything to me.
• 35:43
  Randall Kaplan: And my goal is always to be the most prepared person is walking into any room that I've been in and I'm busy. You're busy. So if someone is pitching me on me I mean, I'm also a venture capitalist as well. So I take these meetings, the first question I asked, is, what's my dog's name? If they don't fucking know my dog's name, I'm honestly the meeting is 30 seconds, you guys have seen it, I'll kick people out. Because it's right on my website, right on my bio. They don't know where I went to school or the name of my tech company. And then we get into some more detailed questions that I'm going to throw them kind of 100 mile an hour Zinger fastball, just to see how much level of research that they've done. You
• 36:22
  Dana White: When You're crazy, or the MC, you win that one.
• 36:25
  Dana White: Yeah,
• 36:26
  Randall Kaplan: it's, it's, it's been great.
• 36:27
  Dana White: I don't expect that type of preparation.
• 36:29
  Randall Kaplan: i It's, we have your team, you're
• 36:33
  Dana White: a fucking numbers guy, you're more you guys are more detailed on on lots of different things. I I'm lucky that I can go in a room. And when it comes to anything that has to do with the fighting, you know, in what I want, and what I'm looking for. I'm absolutely prepared. But I might have Craig Borsari, my head of production, or other key guys in the room?
• 36:57
  Dana White: That would have to answer some questions that you know, to on a detailed level like that.
• 37:01
  Randall Kaplan: I don't view myself as a numbers, guys, I built 100 page, spreadsheets years ago, when I was a banker.
• 37:07
  Randall Kaplan: I mean, I don't do any of that stuff right now. I bet on people just like the potatoes, but I knew that that's that's my business. I want to talk about something that a lot of people don't think is important to be a good leader. And that's loyalty.
• 37:20
  Randall Kaplan: And you were incredibly loyal to Joe Rogan. After he got he got cancelled. And then a lot of people talk about Donald Trump and they say, oh, Dana and Donald Trump it but I don't think a lot of people know how you started with Donald Trump.
• 37:35
  Randall Kaplan: So can you talk about both of those guys? I'm
• 37:37
  Dana White: extremely loyal to all my people, man. Some of my people have been with me for 20 years. 2021 years. So when you talk about loyalty, it's not just with big fucking stars, like, oh, Joe Rogan, and Donald Trump, and all these other guys.
• 37:52
  Dana White: It's the fucking it's the girl that works over and fucking medical that's been with me for 21 years. And God knows what she sacrificed for the fucking job.
• 38:00
  Dana White: traveling on the road and all the early days and all this shit. That when you get these fucking guys, that when you get to a company like ours, and you start looking at oh, we're going into COVID Let's look at spreadsheets and they don't even look at names. You go right to the fucking number. This person makes $200,000 a year 250 You don't even become a fucking name. Yeah, right. No fucking way, man. I if you're with me, you're fucking with me. And we'll figure out let me tell you what, we'll start chopping trees. If we're having trouble financially, we'll get rid of some of the fucking landscaping and we'll get rid of fucking this and that, before we start getting rid of fucking human beings. Okay, number one. Number two. Donald Trump has been an incredible fucking friend to me for 20 years and tell people what they don't know. Because when people try to shit on him and put all this false information out there about the guy. I'll tell you this. Look at what he's going through right now. Right? He's running into a new election. They're trying to fucking bury him financially, all these things that they're doing to him. Easter Sunday. He fucking calls me and says I just want to say Happy Easter to you and your family. You guys having a good day. That fuckin Easter Sunday, he calls me and wishes me a Happy Easter. You know what I mean? For this guy to when when when me and my wife went through what we went through to New Year's Eve ago. He called me three fucking times a week for two weeks, making sure I was okay. And making sure she was okay. You know how the kids that's who fucking Donald Trump is. Fuck all the other, you know all the other. Politics is a dirty fucking business man. It's nasty. It's disgusting. This guy is a fucking good friend. He's a good human. After he won the election. He asked me in my wife to come out and have dinner with him. We sat with for fucking four hours talking about everything he could talk about.
• 40:03
  Dana White: And one of the things that that Donald Trump always would say to me is like, the whole racist thing. He's like, I ran some of the biggest hotels and own some of the biggest hotels. In the fucking world. People from all over the world worked for me.
• 40:17
  Dana White: All different colors and, you know, nationalities and religions. Never Was I ever called the fucking racist until I ran for president ever.
• 40:30
  Randall Kaplan: What these guys both have in common? They were both there for you when nobody else was. Yeah, well, Donald Trump first fun. Yeah,
• 40:38
  Dana White: so Donald Trump Taj Mahal? Well, again, to his business brilliance. I mean, Donald Trump saw this thing before anybody did when you think about he invited us to the Taj cut us a good deal. We did our first no venues wanted us.
• 40:51
  Dana White: We went to the Taj First two fights were at the Taj Mahal.
• 40:54
  Dana White: Trump brand here, UFC brand down there. He brought the thing into the Trump but he was always a fight fan of all kinds of I mean, I think Mike Tyson fought at his place nine or 10 times or something like that. Always been a fight fan saw this thing. He was actually a competitor of mine. So the affliction fucking lunatic, those who call and threatened me all the time, Donald Trump, that they did some kind of deal for Trump and Trump Jr. to kind of be a part of that thing right at the time. And so people would always try to get me to talk shit about Trump.
• 41:26
  Dana White: Because, you know, he was looked at as a competitor. I said, I will never, ever say a bad word about Donald Trump. Donald Trump gave us our you know, and he saw it, he got he got it. And he wasn't gonna get a piece of the UFC. But he saw this thing they offered him they came to him with an offer said, Would you be interested in being an investor?
• 41:41
  Dana White: And, yeah, so the guy's always been. And I told the story a million times. But we our first big story was on the cover of The New York Times. And Donald Trump wrote on that cover the New York Times, congratulations, and always need to do it, even though he was involved in another way, or whatever, and you're the man and all this stuff. And you know, those are the things you don't forget.
• 42:08
  Dana White: When you're battling, trying to grow this business and do what you do. And he's always been that guy. People love a winner.
• 42:15
  Dana White: And the other thing is when he asked me to speak at the Republican Convention, that's how the conversation started. If you don't want to do this, I completely understand. But I would be honored if you would speak at the Republican National Convention for me, and I'm not a political guy. Everybody thinks I'm like, some fucking crazy Republican or something. I'm not, you know what I'm about?
• 42:33
  Dana White: I'm about common sense. Okay.
• 42:37
  Dana White: That's what I'm for common sense. If you asked me now how I leave. When I was younger, I was way more of a Democrat. You know, and as I get older, I probably swing more libertarian than anything. But yeah, everybody told me not to do it.
• 42:57
  Dana White: Don't do this. Don't get involved in this shit. He's not gonna win. You know, like, fuck that this guy has been a good guy to me. And he asked me to do it, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do I'm not gonna go up and go, Hey, Democrats are this and that you should go, that's okay. No, let me tell you this guy is. And let me tell you why I'm standing here. And why I'm doing this.
• 43:15
  Dana White: This is who Donald Trump is.
• 43:19
  Randall Kaplan: People start companies for different reasons.
• 43:21
  Randall Kaplan: People talk about work life balance, and oh, I want to start a company I want to grow up, but I'm on my own time you move the birth of your second son for Chuck by delphite. So what's your advice all those people out there who are going to start companies and say, Man, I'm going to be able to go pick up my kids at school, and I'm going to take Saturday's off and not work seven days a week.
• 43:42
  Dana White: It's the funniest thing that I ever say when I see people talking about Yeah, I think I'm gonna start my own business. You know why? I want a lot of free time, I want to be my own boss, and I want to You better get a fucking nine to five. Because let me tell you what, you if you really want to build your business, and you want your business become successful, the early years, you are a slave to your company. If you look at the success that we've had, I'm in the office, I'm, I'm not gonna say I'm the first guy at the office, but I'm there at nine o'clock in the morning every day. And I'm definitely the fucking last guy to leave every night. I don't get out of the office till 830, quarter, nine every fucking night. There's the whole the old fucking saying, you know, oh, it's easy to get to the top. But it's harder to stay on top. It's the absolute fucking truth. You know, your rise to the top goes like this. But then what's next?
• 44:30
  Dana White: And the other question is, what's the top? I already told you? We're not at the top yet.
• 44:38
  Dana White: There's so much more room for growth in this business and so much more work to be done. If you think you've got to the top.
• 44:47
  Dana White: You fucked up. There is no top you never get to the fucking top. There's always ways to get bigger to get better to get more efficient. You're always going to grow. If you stop fucking growing. It's over.
• 45:06
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about the sphere. And you're gonna be the first live sporting event of the sphere. Mexican Independence Day, I think September 14 this upcoming year? How did that come about? And how amazing is that going to be? So
• 45:18
  Dana White: I went to the YouTube show and the sphere opened. And I was blown away by the technology of the sphere.
• 45:25
  Dana White: And this is what we were talking about earlier about when new technology comes out. And the thing that I loved was all the people are saying yeah, it's gonna be hard to do a sporting event. It's weird with a concert because you're not really watching the band. You're watching all this other stuff and and as soon as people start getting negative about something, I didn't look at all the negative aspects of the sphere. I looked at all the positive aspects of the sphere.
• 45:48
  Dana White: I look at it completely because anybody that goes to the sphere will walk Got a thing going, What a fucking unbelievable experience, because it's true.
• 45:54
  Dana White: But it's different and it's unique. And it's never been done before. And people have these things about why this can't be done, why you couldn't do a sporting event there. And I'm like, Yeah, I want to do it. And I want to do it now. So I literally the next day, told all my fucking production guys, my guy that does tickets and all that shit, you're going to the next few to show, go watch this thing. I want you to call me as soon as the fucking Show's over and tell me what you think. And they all call me and said, This is a fucking cool experience.
• 46:25
  Dana White: And I said, we're doing it.
• 46:28
  Dana White: We're doing it. So the timing again, everything was about timing. I got into sort of a beef with with MGM over a date.
• 46:38
  Dana White: And MGM ended up letting me do this fight at the sphere. And we're gonna fucking kill it.
• 46:44
  Randall Kaplan: My wife used to date Jim, my wife Denise data, one of my wife's best friend data Jim Dolan for six years.
• 46:51
  Randall Kaplan: And the four of us had dinner four and a half years ago and he's telling me about this thing he's building it seemed ridiculous by the way people shit on gym, you know, they don't love them. You know, they don't think he's a good sports owner. But he's telling us about this thing and how much it's costing and I it was hard to imagine it and just getting on him now a shirt that I mean they're losing a shit ton of money.
• 47:14
  Dana White: The technology in this thing is on fucking believable. Yeah. Well, I'm hearing he's opening a bunch more all over the world. Yeah,
• 47:22
  Randall Kaplan: hopefully they'll they'll make money.
• 47:23
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah. So let's talk about power slap
• 47:26
  Dana White: when we were losing shitloads of money in the early days. Yep. are so many businesses that come out the gate and just start fucking crank and cash power slap is one of them that did. Power slap is the most successful thing I've ever been a part of in such a short amount of time. It's fucking insane. But
• 47:44
  Randall Kaplan: you got $36 million in sponsorship money right out of the gate? How is that that's based on you? And why is it the most exciting thing you've ever done? Well, first of all, let's back up for one second. I'm sorry. Tell people what it
• 47:55
  Dana White: is. Yeah, so power slap. You probably saw it in 2018. On Instagram, these dudes coming out of Russia and Poland that were slapping each other unbelievable knockouts and all this stuff. I'm like, This is fucking crazy. And I own the UFC. And, and I said, I started taking a deeper dive into it looking at it. And I looked on YouTube, this thing looked like it was filmed on a flip phone in a barn somewhere. And the production quality was terrible and had 350 million views, which at the time, was like a Justin Bieber video. And I was like, holy shit. What would happen if I did this? And did it the right way? And the answer is 6 billion views. 14 months, 6 billion views. And think about this. We have 13 million followers on social media in 14 months. Right now on on YouTube. We have more subscribers than NASCAR, the Major League Soccer, the PGA and a few others. I can't remember off the top my head, but it is we were on. Last year. We were number 15 on Tik Tok on the platform. Out of billions of views. This thing is a social media fucking juggernaut. And so sponsors love it. You know, because of the social media aspect of it.
• 49:23
  Randall Kaplan: I think philanthropy is super important to you. I noticed to me as well.
• 49:24
  Randall Kaplan: You've done so many amazing things for so many people. You gave a million dollars to the Las Vegas shooting victims. You raised money for armed forces charities want a fundraiser you raise $4 million. For I want you to talk about Conor O'Grady and the girl in Thailand and what motivated you to do amazing things for them.
• 49:46
  Dana White: I'm Shut up. I mean, the girl in Thailand has become, you know, super special to me, I literally would stay off the internet. However, many years ago, this wasn't on weekends, I didn't. And for some reason, I ended up on fucking internet on a Saturday. And there was this guy that had posted something that he had just come back from Thailand. And he was training Muay Thai over there with this legendary coach. And his daughter was dying. Because she needed some type of heart surgery. And she was going to die in the next several days. If she didn't get the money, and it was going to be $50,000 And the guy was like, Dana White. You need to fucking put this money up right now and donate it to her. You fucking bet this much playing blackjack. You know, bla bla bla bla bla and basically coming at me like that and people on the thing we're going, Whoa, he can do whatever he wants with his money. You know, why do you expect it? But this is the way I talk. This guy was talking to me the way that I talk. And he is wrong. I was like, No, this dude's fucking absolutely right. He's not wrong. He's fucking right. I, I'm supposed to do this, it was fucking weird, whatever the reason was, so I ended up reaching out, we find out if it's real, it's real. And I send the $50,000 over. And, um, you know, her and I always shoot.
• 51:19
  Dana White: So, when you when you go into their gym, there's this massive picture of me in there. And then there's a big picture of me over her bed, like, I'm her guardian angel. And and I pay for her schooling, and I pay for all of her, her medical stuff. And, you know, she's like, Yeah, anyway, I don't like talking about a lot of this stuff. But, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna position that I'm very lucky that I can help other people. And I'm not one of these guys that likes walking out with the fucking big check and doing all that bullshit. I do stuff because I should do it. And I do stuff because I want to do it. I don't do it because because I want to be recognized doing it. But I don't like talking about it.
• 52:13
  Randall Kaplan: Right. So we met at the scale conference in May last year, Kelly O'Connor shout out to her did this amazing thing. I interviewed you on stage. In the grand ballroom at the Bellagio Hotel, I asked you about the girl. You don't want to talk about it.
• 52:30
  Dana White: I don't like talking about it.
• 52:32
  Randall Kaplan: And he started crying.
• 52:34
  Dana White: On stage that is not true. I did not start crying.
• 52:36
  Dana White: Are you saying? I think you want to try and make me cry. But
• 52:40
  Randall Kaplan: you said I wasn't expecting this is an Oprah moment.
• 52:43
  Dana White: I do not like talking about this stuff. Okay,
• 52:46
  Randall Kaplan: but you teared up. And even now, you know, you tear up a little bit? What what are you thinking? When when you talk about these amazing things that you've done? Why is it so emotional for you?
• 52:57
  Dana White: I don't know. I don't know what it is. And I don't like talking about charity work at all. I don't like it. We do tons of it. Because we should do it. I think that earlier when I told you about money is a tool to have fun. And if you look at it any other way you're fucked up. Money is also a tool to help people. People that you know, they say money can't fix all your problems. Money can fix a lot of fucking problems if you if you if you use it in the right way and in the right areas. You can save people's lives, you can change people's lives, you can make life easier for a lot of people. And I like that aspect of money. I like that aspect of money more than listen, I'm not going to bullshit and act like I don't have fucking nice cars and, and shit like that. But you can use money to do a lot of cool, fun shit. And you can use money to do a lot of really, really good things. Right? And that's, I like that about money.
• 54:06
  Randall Kaplan: Right? You do a lot of great things for people not about money. I mean, you're always taking photos you did an amazing thing
• 54:19
  Dana White: who told me we shouldn't even be talking about this shit right now. This is this is not good stuff to talk about who told
• 54:28
  Randall Kaplan: me that can fight that you told me we got to this conference, and my son wanted to go I'm like, you know, you can't go to this conference.
• 54:39
  Randall Kaplan: You deserve this video. Hey, Troy, I can't believe you know your dad and bring it here.
• 54:50
  Randall Kaplan: Thank you for being such a huge fan, you got to whatever you want it. Thank you if the reason that I'm crying is because she said it was the greatest night of his life. And so we can we can end the show. With that. I want to thank you. You're an amazing guy. And when you
• 55:14
  Dana White: when you can do these type of things for people.
• 55:16
  Dana White: We should have ended this podcast 10 minutes ago, I told you
• 55:20
  Randall Kaplan: last night, we said when you
• 55:23
  Dana White: are in a position where you're able to do these kinds of things. And I what you're saying to me right now, you know many fucking fathers and sons have come up to me and said thanks some of the best moments I've ever had my father some of the best moments I've ever had with my son. Were UFC events or you know watching the fights together. And this is exactly what I'm talking about.
• 55:46
  Dana White: What life is all about? is creating memories and crew gating, you know, experiences with people that you care about.
• 55:54
  Dana White: And whether they're this level or this level, whatever your level in life is. It doesn't matter. It's all about these experiences. Right.
• 56:06
  Randall Kaplan: Thank you.
• 56:07
  Dana White: Thank you, guy. I
• 56:08
  Randall Kaplan: appreciate what the fuck you're
• 56:10
  Dana White: trying to do to me.
• 56:10
  Dana White: But, yeah, Jesus Christ. We should have ended this 10 minutes ago.
• 56:16
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, you're doing I appreciate it. I appreciate you