Ari Emanuel made a public appearance in London on Saturday to discuss his memoir, Roll the Calls and the conversation quickly turned to some of the most challenging moments of his storied career.
Among the many topics discussed, one transaction stood out as particularly difficult. When asked which of his numerous high-profile agreements gave him the most trouble, Emanuel didn’t hesitate.
“The hardest deal was probably the UFC deal,” he told the London audience. “I had been representing UFC for 25 years. It was on Fox. We thought Fox was going to buy it, easy.”
But what seemed like a straightforward arrangement quickly became complicated. Another potential buyer, Warner, was downsizing at the time and no longer a viable option.
“So those two were out, and then it was us against the Chinese because they had a lot of money coming into the entertainment space,” Emanuel recalled. “But [UFC boss] Dana [White] didn’t want to go to them, and then all of a sudden something horrible happened.”
“I blame all of you from Britain because you guys didn’t elect the right person at the time. Brexit happened, and the banking system fell apart, and so we had to buy the business [when] the banking system kind of went haywire.”
In short, “it was just one headache after another, but we got it done,” he concluded.
Emanuel also positioned UFC and other live sporting experiences as cultural touchstones capable of bridging political divides in an increasingly polarized world.
“I’d rather talk to the other side,” he said, identifying as a Democrat. “Sports is a common ground.”
When the interviewer pressed him on political topics including whether MAGA represented “the biggest cult going,” Emanuel responded by distancing himself.
He stated, “I don’t want to be in MAGA. And I don’t want to be in the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America].”
When the interviewer suggested UFC may have become the biggest sport associated with the Trump era and questioned its longevity beyond it, Emanuel was confident: “Yeah, I think it’s going to outlast me.”
