Ari Emanuel’s autobiography presents the creation of his sports and entertainment empire as a series of high-risk bets, relentless negotiations and carefully managed crises. Among the most consequential was his decision to pursue the UFC, a property he first noticed while reviewing television ratings in the mid-2000s.
Emanuel first notices the UFC in the TV ratings
In his autobiography, Emanuel describes discovering the UFC almost by accident. While tracking programming numbers, he noticed the promotion attracting unusually large audiences.
He writes,
“These are serious what-the-[ ] numbers. I’ve not been paying close attention to this show and that’s my bad because it’s a phenomenon among a wide swath of America. Make some calls, do my research. Learn that the guy in charge of UFC is someone named—Dana White? Again, never heard of him. I ask my assistant to get him on the phone right away. Early 2005.”
Emanuel learned about Dana White and the Fertitta brothers, Lorenzo and Frank III, who had acquired the struggling promotion and were attempting to transform it into a legitimate sports business.
That transformation was not simply about putting matches on television. Emanuel describes how the UFC had to reinvent itself, creating rules and winning approval from state regulators. The organization had previously been illegal in much of the United States, and its owners had to convince lawmakers that the sport could be regulated.
For Emanuel, however, the business opportunity was increasingly obvious.
The first meeting almost ends the relationship
Emanuel’s first meeting with White and Lorenzo Fertitta was hardly a masterclass in salesmanship.
He admits that instead of allowing the UFC’s owners to explain their business, he talked too much. He discussed his own wrestling background, his clients and his relationship with WWE. Most importantly, he compared the UFC with WWE.
“I should let them tell me all this, their version, but instead I regale them about my own wrestling days, my stellar client list, my excellent relationship with WWE. I compare WWE to UFC! My biggest blunder.”
In retrospect, Emanuel recognized that this was exactly the wrong approach.
“They want to hear that their kid is singularly beautiful. Feeling the meeting slip away, I try to calm myself, quiet my mind, maybe stall for time, by grabbing a putter and practicing ten-footers. Meeting over.”
The Fertittas were building something they believed was unique. They did not need an agent sitting across from them explaining how their business resembled another entertainment property.
Emanuel remembers the meeting ending badly.
“Watching them leave my office, I know I’ve blown it.”
But he did not walk away. Instead, he kept calling White and Lorenzo, attempting to repair the relationship. White eventually gave him an opportunity to prove his value.
White wanted a meeting with HBO’s sports leadership because he hoped to get the UFC onto the network. He told Emanuel that if he could arrange the meeting that day, he would sign with him.
Emanuel made the call.
The HBO meeting did not produce the television deal White wanted. But White signed with Emanuel’s agency anyway.
A decade later, the UFC is suddenly for sale
The relationship eventually evolved into something much bigger.
In January 2016, Emanuel says he heard through deep-background channels that the Fertitta brothers were considering selling the UFC.
The rumor soon became public, and suddenly the UFC was attracting interest from private-equity firms, billionaires and major media companies. Endeavor had also spoken with the Fertittas before, but their asking price had been beyond what Emanuel could afford at the time.
This time, however, the circumstances were different.
Emanuel had Silver Lake’s Egon Durban as a financial partner, and the Fertittas appeared more serious about selling. He called Lorenzo and pushed him not to sell without giving Endeavor an opportunity.
Lorenzo refused to commit either way.
So Emanuel asked a more direct question: what would it take?
Lorenzo’s answer gave Emanuel the number he needed to understand the scale of the challenge: “it starts with a [ ] four.”
A four-billion-dollar price tag immediately changed the nature of the conversation.
Emanuel writes,
“I ask him [Lorenzo] straight out, What’s your dream price? Just tell me what number do you see when you close your eyes? I don’t know, Ari…but it starts with a four… Sit down with Egon. UFC. Interested? Very.”
This was no longer a conventional acquisition. Endeavor would need to assemble an enormous consortium of investors to compete.
Why Emanuel believed UFC belonged inside Endeavor
Emanuel brought the opportunity to Egon Durban at Silver Lake.
Durban immediately understood the strategic significance. In Emanuel’s account, he described buying the UFC as potentially a “coup de grâce,” because sports rights were becoming increasingly important as the media industry changed.
The UFC also complemented IMG, the sports and entertainment giant Endeavor had acquired.
IMG had given Endeavor global reach and credibility in sports. The UFC offered something different: a massive live-events property with a global fan base, valuable media rights and significant room for expansion.
For Emanuel, there was also a personal dimension.
He had grown up wrestling and had long viewed life through the lens of competition. Owning the world’s most prominent mixed-martial-arts organization therefore seemed unusually fitting.
The bidding war gets serious
By late spring 2016, the auction was becoming increasingly competitive.
Reports were circulating about bids of $2.4 billion and $3 billion. Then Dana White appeared on television and was asked about the reports. White said the UFC was not for sale.
Emanuel interpreted the statement as evidence that the Fertittas were having second thoughts.
From his perspective, that was understandable. Selling the UFC was not simply a financial transaction for Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta. It represented the sale of a company they had built and transformed.
He writes, “The way he [Dana] says it, I know. The Fertittas are having second thoughts. Overwhelming, emotional, life-changing decision, and it comes at a highly volatile global moment, while they’re simultaneously trying to pull off the biggest event in UFC history—UFC 200. The timing’s suboptimal.”
UFC 200 was approaching and was expected to be the biggest event in the company’s history. At precisely the moment the Fertittas were deciding whether to sell, they were also preparing for one of the most important events in UFC history.
Emanuel and Durban responded by putting together an investor consortium capable of reaching $4 billion.
The process was exhausting.
Emanuel describes making hundreds of calls and managing the competing personalities of investors, banks and other participants. He characterizes the investors as anxious and difficult to manage, with constant uncertainty about whether someone might pull back.
The ten days before the bids were due became particularly intense.
Eventually, Endeavor won the bidding war. But Emanuel’s biggest problem was still ahead.
Jon Jones tests positive just before UFC 200
Only days before UFC 200, Jon Jones tested positive for PEDs.
Jones was one of the UFC’s biggest stars and, according to Emanuel, its youngest champion at the time. He was removed from UFC 200 and suspended.
From a financial perspective, the timing could hardly have been worse.
He writes,
“Now we go to final negotiations. And as we do, everything comes crashing down. One of UFC’s biggest stars, the youngest belt holder ever, Jon Jones, has just tested positive for [PEDs].”
Jones’ absence potentially meant lower viewership and lower revenue. If the UFC’s value was being assessed partly on its ability to generate media and event revenue, the development could logically affect the economics of the acquisition.
“It’s days before his match at UFC 200. With Jones disqualified, and banished from the sport for a year, viewership will be down. Meaning, revenue will be down. On paper that reduces the value of the UFC.”
And that immediately created an obvious question for Endeavor’s negotiating team. Should they use the Jones situation to demand a lower price?
Some members of the acquisition team wanted to do exactly that. Emanuel saw the situation differently.
He believed the Jones controversy could give the Fertittas an excuse to walk away from a deal they were already emotionally struggling to complete.
He wrote,
“Instinct, however, tells me that the biggest problem is still the Fertittas. They already have cold feet. They aren’t going to want to hear about Jon Jones. Having spent time with them, gotten to know them, I know that if someone tries to mess with them now, if someone suggests a price reduction, the Fertittas are going to walk.”
Emanuel’s fear was not Jon Jones, it was the re-trade
Emanuel feared that the Fertittas they might simply walk away. The acquisition team, however, saw an opportunity.
If the UFC’s value had been negatively affected by the loss of its biggest star for UFC 200, why shouldn’t Endeavor receive some financial adjustment?
For Emanuel, that thinking represented a classic short-term versus long-term decision.
He believed the immediate financial saving could be insignificant compared with the value of completing the acquisition.
He returned repeatedly to advice he had received from Durban during the earlier IMG transaction. When the price of IMG had climbed dramatically, Durban had argued that Emanuel would not remember the additional $400 million years later if the asset became significantly more valuable.
The same logic now applied to UFC.
The question was not whether Jones’ absence had economic consequences. It was whether those consequences justified risking the entire acquisition.
Emanuel’s message to his team was uncompromising:
“If you so much as mention Jon Jones, this deal will die.”
The team had to enter the closing negotiations and resist the temptation to turn Jones’ failed test into a last-minute bargaining chip.
The final negotiation
The final signing took place in a large Century City law-firm conference room.
Emanuel describes roughly thirty people sitting around the table, with about twenty representing the Fertittas and ten on Endeavor’s side.
A scribe was recording the negotiations in real time while lawyers around the world participated by speakerphone. The atmosphere was tense.
Every remaining issue had to be resolved. Every clause mattered. The deal was enormous, and everyone knew how much was at stake.
But Emanuel was watching something else.
He was watching the Fertittas. He says he saw fear on their faces, followed by disappointment. Why? Because nobody mentioned Jon Jones.
The failed PED test had been their potential escape route. If Endeavor tried to reduce the price, the Fertittas could potentially decide they had had enough and walk away.
But Endeavor did not give them that opportunity. Instead, the deal continued moving forward.
“I turn and study the faces of the Fertittas. The only faces that matter. I see fear. And then I see— Disappointment. They’re bummed that no one is speaking the name Jon Jones. That was their last off-ramp, and we’re not giving it to them, and this deal’s going through. It has momentum now, propulsive energy.”
Emanuel describes the transaction as having developed its own momentum.
At $4.2 billion, once the deal was moving toward completion, he believed it had become extremely difficult to stop.
There was no Hollywood ending to the acquisition
One of the most interesting parts of Emanuel’s account is what happened next. For a transaction of this size, people might expect a dramatic moment when everyone realizes the deal has closed.
Instead, Emanuel says the ending was surprisingly uneventful.
There was no single moment when the room erupted and everyone knew that history had been made. The paperwork was completed, the negotiations ended and the ownership simply changed hands.
As Emanuel puts it, one moment the UFC belonged to the Fertitta brothers, and the next it belonged to Endeavor.
” The deal is done and everyone’s reality is altered. One second ago UFC belonged to the Fertitta brothers. Now it belongs to me. Or, rather, us.”
There were handshakes, hugs, nervous laughter and the release of all the tension that had accumulated during the negotiations.
The $4.2 billion acquisition was complete.
