Dana White Says The UFC Is Not For Sale...Unless You're Really Awesome

If you can't get enough of Dana's antics, and who ever does really, check out his video blog above:

Following a report on bloomberg.com, many people came to believe that the UFC's owners Dana White (10% stake) and the Fertitta brothers (majority owners) might be interested in selling a stake in the company. This led to speculation that the UFC was attempting to raise funds to continue the organization's rapid, world-wide expansion, or that, perhaps, they had overextended themselves in some way. Well, according to Dana's newly published words on Yahoo Sports, that much-discussed interview was very misleading:

"He kept [expletive] pushing and pushing. He said, ‘OK, hypothetically speaking, would you ever sell a piece of it?’ I said, ‘I guess we’d sell a tiny little piece. We’d probably sell a tiny little piece.’ But, here’s the thing: I want it to be known that this guy kept pushing me and pushing me. I said ‘No, we wouldn’t go public. No, we wouldn’t sell it.’ At the end of the day, we’re the guys who are driving this thing. We have the vision. We know where we want to take this thing.”

So, it seems as though Dana was pressed to answer the question the way he did, which suggests that the business community, particularly that interviewer, are both impressed by the UFC's success as a private company and eager for the chance to invest. The UFC pres. did remain a bit cagey on the issue, though-- stating that only awesome business partners would be considered for a stake in the UFC, which, at the same time, isn't actually for sale:

"We’re not interested in selling a piece of this to anybody. Me, Frank and Lorenzo are the three owners. We have an awesome relationship. Everything runs smoothly. It’s perfect. And for us to even offer somebody a piece, it would be the biggest compliment in [expletive] history because they’d have to be a serious strategic partner. It’s the only [expletive] way we’d do it"