Lorenzo Fertitta speaks UFC
Jan 3, 2008 20:12:01 GMT -5
Post by DUCE on Jan 3, 2008 20:12:01 GMT -5
sports.yahoo.com/mma/
In 2000, White convinced the Fertittas, who were running the successful Station Casinos in Las Vegas, to fly to Louisiana to watch a UFC show. They got hooked instantly and a few months later, wound up purchasing the company.
As the seventh anniversary of the Fertittas' purchase of the UFC approaches on Jan. 15, Lorenzo Fertitta sat down with Yahoo! Sports to talk about the company's success, the growth of mixed martial arts and his thoughts on White's performance as UFC president.
Fertitta, 38, was ranked 380th on Forbes Magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans in its September issue. Forbes estimates his fortune at $1.3 billion. But Fertitta describes himself simply "as a fan of the sport" and a guy who "loves to see a good fight."
DUCE Lorenzo, I can respect but sometimes I see some stubborn pollitical manuvering. Like how is he going to flip flop on web sites MMA journalism and give an interview when his "no bull$#%" "street smart" friend said "they started this with Randy!" after making a fool out of himself by first stating it was coming from Couture "Hollywood agent" that he dog slapped.
LF: Not really. I actually look at this the opposite way. One of the greatest successes that we've had, for instance, is the last show we did in New Jersey (UFC 78 on Nov. 17). We had a fight being headlined by two guys who had never fought for a championship and, relatively, had never been proven to be pay-per-view draws. But we basically sold out the arena in New Jersey and we did very strong, above average, pay-per-view. So to me, while it wasn't Liddell-Ortiz, that said more to me than one of what you might call one of our bigger fights did. It showed that our UFC brand can carry a whole show.
DUCE I don't mean to bury 78 but Jersey was starving for a UFC event.
Y!: You've run into problems recently that you haven't had before. The whole dispute with Randy Couture has put the UFC in a negative light. Tito Ortiz has made comments about forming a fighters' union and hoping the fighters will be treated more fairly. Is this a natural outgrowth of the explosion of the sport and how do you plan to handle what seems to be a growing labor problem?
LF: Our business is out in a public forum much more so than a traditional business would be. Yeah, Randy has come out and made everything very public. And Tito is always talking like that. He's been that way since we've owned this thing. One day we're the greatest and he's super happy and the next day we're not. He's like a roller coaster, so that doesn't concern me too much. Overall, the majority of our guys are extremely happy. We've done a great job of promoting them. One of the things we do is that we invest heavily in the brand. We spend tens of millions of dollars on marketing. We're investing back into the sport. What that does is make everything more valuable for the fighters going forward. They should be happy that we invest back into the sport, because it continues to grow and they can make more money. This isn't a short-term thing.
DUCE and this is going to continue until there is a fighters union or unions. Anyone can see that.
Y!: You've had to address the whole money issue much more than you ever have. You held a news conference to talk about what Randy Couture was making. You're criticized greatly for the amount the fighters are paid. (At UFC 79) Chuck Liddell is making a purse of $500,000, according to the Nevada Athletic Commission. Floyd Mayweather was guaranteed more than $11 million when he fought Ricky Hatton earlier this month. Why is there such a disparity between what the top boxers make and what the top MMA fighters earn?
LF: You have to understand that the UFC has a completely different business model than boxing. We are in a situation where we're not only the promoter, but we pay for all of the production, where as in boxing, the promoter doesn't pay for any of that stuff. HBO or the network does. We pay for all of the advertising and the marketing. If you're a boxing promoter, you don't do that. You don't come out of pocket. Boxing promoters take no risk up front. They get guarantees from the venue and from the networks, so they take no risk. We underwrite the entire thing. And like I said before, we invest into the sport to try to grow it by doing things like going to Europe. We took major losses in Europe (in 2007). We didn't make money on any of those European shows.
But looking forward five years, we realize that Europe is going to be bigger than the U.S. and a lot of those fighters are going to benefit from the way we've cultivated the European market.
The boxing way is to take a short-term approach, but we're focused on the long term, both for the brand and for the sport.
DUCE I am a tournament junkie. I love them. Blood Sport is one of my favorite movies. More Vale Tudo, MMA, Lute livre, whatever. I like and understand why he took loses to cultivate fighters in UK/Ireland.
Y!: There are a lot of successful business people who are getting into MMA. Elite XC has a deal with Showtime. Mark Cuban is one of the richest guys in the world and he's beginning to make a move in MMA. Doesn't it indicate when people of substance like that get involved that the sport is growing to the point where it can be viable long-term as a business?
LF: Based upon our success, as with any business, you're going to get guys who are going to try to be the 'me, too,' person and want to try to hang on and build on the success that we've had. I don't necessarily think that that's a bad thing. There are always going to be others in the business and I respect what they're doing. I understand that. It's our job to stay ahead and continue to be the leader. At the end of the day, a lot of people are going to try to take shots at us. But what I like to say is, 'You can only tackle the guy with the ball,' and we have the ball.
Y!: Where do you stand in the dispute with Randy? How upset were you at the way it played out? What will your next step be to move forward? And do you see yourself getting involved personally to try to straighten out whatever the problem is that exists between the UFC and a guy who has been one of its biggest stars?
LF: I would say … You know, I don't even want to talk about Randy. I'm not being disrespectful, but because of the situation we're in, our attorneys, we're not even going to comment at all about Randy Couture.
Y!: The UFC president, Dana White, has become one of the biggest figures in the sport. But he's also controversial. What do you think of the job he's done and where can he get better? Has he ever said anything that just makes you groan and go, 'Oh, Dana,' when you hear about it?
LF: Bottom line, and I've said this before, but I don't think anybody could have accomplished what Dana has. It took somebody like Dana who's got street smarts, who doesn't pull punches, who speaks his mind, who never bull(expletive), to do this. At the end of the day, if we had taken a Harvard MBA and hired him in 2001 to run this company, we'd probably be bankrupt right now. There are so many things that are unconventional about this business. This isn't something you can read about and learn in a textbook. This is a business where, day-to-day, you have to be on the ground and you have to be on top of your game. Dana is that guy. I truly believe that Dana was put on the Earth to run the UFC.
DUCE No bullS%$^? Are you kidding me? Just look at he says "Pride will still exist." "Fedor is the #1 fighter in the world." etc. Someone who lies or constantly counterdicts themselves is not a no BS type of guy. Lorenzo is happy with Dana. I get it. I think its a ticking time bomb.
Y!: Dana seems like one of those guys who, if you get on his bad side, you never get off. There was the whole thing with Matt Lindland, for instance. He's a fighter who by all rights should be in the UFC but is not. Do you talk to him about this and try to mediate any of these kinds of situations?
LF: We talk about different points, but Dana does what he wants to do. He's proven that he has great instincts and most of the decisions he's made have been for the best. Nobody is perfect, but I think Dana White has done a fabulous job building this company into far and away the industry leader and I'm not going to start telling him now how to do his job. He's proven he can do his job without me holding his hand.
DUCE Dana White strikes me as someone who is capable of being dragged down by a Sakuzagate scandle like Pride had. I saw an article I forget where... no wait was it Gross? Eh... yeah it was Sherdog telling the UFC to stop padding itself on the back. Joel Silva of ALL people was passing notes to Rogan( who loves MMA especially Japanese MMA) to say "this isn't Japan" or "He is not fighting in Japan". Which seemed silly me. 1.) Wanderlei is fighting Las Vegas 2.) Isn't this a little like beating a family member. Pride is the UFC and the UFC is Pride. Thats the fact. How can you really say "WE ARE BETTER THEN THEM!" when you are them or more or less "We did everything in our power to kill this brand name so we can promote ourselves over that brand! BRAND NAME!" Why Joel Silva why? Did you win a bet or... it this ANOTHER pro wrestling rip off scheme of Dana White's. The "Come to Jesus meeting" referance and now something strangely simular but without true meaning "YEAH THAT'LL PUT BUTTS IN SEATS!" comment that Bischoff made Schiavone say about Cactus Jack beating the Rock for the WWF title.
UFC is a 600 pound Gorilla WITH THE BALL!
M-1 is the image above
All of the other orgs need to take advantage of some this mistakes the UFC is stubbornly making. I love the UFC and its history but the brand be damned. I am not going to keep buying something because of the name attached.
Rant over. ;D
In 2000, White convinced the Fertittas, who were running the successful Station Casinos in Las Vegas, to fly to Louisiana to watch a UFC show. They got hooked instantly and a few months later, wound up purchasing the company.As the seventh anniversary of the Fertittas' purchase of the UFC approaches on Jan. 15, Lorenzo Fertitta sat down with Yahoo! Sports to talk about the company's success, the growth of mixed martial arts and his thoughts on White's performance as UFC president.
Fertitta, 38, was ranked 380th on Forbes Magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans in its September issue. Forbes estimates his fortune at $1.3 billion. But Fertitta describes himself simply "as a fan of the sport" and a guy who "loves to see a good fight."
DUCE Lorenzo, I can respect but sometimes I see some stubborn pollitical manuvering. Like how is he going to flip flop on web sites MMA journalism and give an interview when his "no bull$#%" "street smart" friend said "they started this with Randy!" after making a fool out of himself by first stating it was coming from Couture "Hollywood agent" that he dog slapped.
LF: Not really. I actually look at this the opposite way. One of the greatest successes that we've had, for instance, is the last show we did in New Jersey (UFC 78 on Nov. 17). We had a fight being headlined by two guys who had never fought for a championship and, relatively, had never been proven to be pay-per-view draws. But we basically sold out the arena in New Jersey and we did very strong, above average, pay-per-view. So to me, while it wasn't Liddell-Ortiz, that said more to me than one of what you might call one of our bigger fights did. It showed that our UFC brand can carry a whole show.
DUCE I don't mean to bury 78 but Jersey was starving for a UFC event.
Y!: You've run into problems recently that you haven't had before. The whole dispute with Randy Couture has put the UFC in a negative light. Tito Ortiz has made comments about forming a fighters' union and hoping the fighters will be treated more fairly. Is this a natural outgrowth of the explosion of the sport and how do you plan to handle what seems to be a growing labor problem?
LF: Our business is out in a public forum much more so than a traditional business would be. Yeah, Randy has come out and made everything very public. And Tito is always talking like that. He's been that way since we've owned this thing. One day we're the greatest and he's super happy and the next day we're not. He's like a roller coaster, so that doesn't concern me too much. Overall, the majority of our guys are extremely happy. We've done a great job of promoting them. One of the things we do is that we invest heavily in the brand. We spend tens of millions of dollars on marketing. We're investing back into the sport. What that does is make everything more valuable for the fighters going forward. They should be happy that we invest back into the sport, because it continues to grow and they can make more money. This isn't a short-term thing.
DUCE and this is going to continue until there is a fighters union or unions. Anyone can see that.
Y!: You've had to address the whole money issue much more than you ever have. You held a news conference to talk about what Randy Couture was making. You're criticized greatly for the amount the fighters are paid. (At UFC 79) Chuck Liddell is making a purse of $500,000, according to the Nevada Athletic Commission. Floyd Mayweather was guaranteed more than $11 million when he fought Ricky Hatton earlier this month. Why is there such a disparity between what the top boxers make and what the top MMA fighters earn?
LF: You have to understand that the UFC has a completely different business model than boxing. We are in a situation where we're not only the promoter, but we pay for all of the production, where as in boxing, the promoter doesn't pay for any of that stuff. HBO or the network does. We pay for all of the advertising and the marketing. If you're a boxing promoter, you don't do that. You don't come out of pocket. Boxing promoters take no risk up front. They get guarantees from the venue and from the networks, so they take no risk. We underwrite the entire thing. And like I said before, we invest into the sport to try to grow it by doing things like going to Europe. We took major losses in Europe (in 2007). We didn't make money on any of those European shows.
But looking forward five years, we realize that Europe is going to be bigger than the U.S. and a lot of those fighters are going to benefit from the way we've cultivated the European market.
The boxing way is to take a short-term approach, but we're focused on the long term, both for the brand and for the sport.
DUCE I am a tournament junkie. I love them. Blood Sport is one of my favorite movies. More Vale Tudo, MMA, Lute livre, whatever. I like and understand why he took loses to cultivate fighters in UK/Ireland.
Y!: There are a lot of successful business people who are getting into MMA. Elite XC has a deal with Showtime. Mark Cuban is one of the richest guys in the world and he's beginning to make a move in MMA. Doesn't it indicate when people of substance like that get involved that the sport is growing to the point where it can be viable long-term as a business?
LF: Based upon our success, as with any business, you're going to get guys who are going to try to be the 'me, too,' person and want to try to hang on and build on the success that we've had. I don't necessarily think that that's a bad thing. There are always going to be others in the business and I respect what they're doing. I understand that. It's our job to stay ahead and continue to be the leader. At the end of the day, a lot of people are going to try to take shots at us.
But what I like to say is, 'You can only tackle the guy with the ball,' and we have the ball.Y!: Where do you stand in the dispute with Randy? How upset were you at the way it played out? What will your next step be to move forward? And do you see yourself getting involved personally to try to straighten out whatever the problem is that exists between the UFC and a guy who has been one of its biggest stars?
LF: I would say … You know, I don't even want to talk about Randy. I'm not being disrespectful, but because of the situation we're in, our attorneys, we're not even going to comment at all about Randy Couture.
Y!: The UFC president, Dana White, has become one of the biggest figures in the sport. But he's also controversial. What do you think of the job he's done and where can he get better? Has he ever said anything that just makes you groan and go, 'Oh, Dana,' when you hear about it?
LF: Bottom line, and I've said this before, but I don't think anybody could have accomplished what Dana has. It took somebody like Dana who's got street smarts, who doesn't pull punches, who speaks his mind, who never bull(expletive), to do this. At the end of the day, if we had taken a Harvard MBA and hired him in 2001 to run this company, we'd probably be bankrupt right now. There are so many things that are unconventional about this business. This isn't something you can read about and learn in a textbook. This is a business where, day-to-day, you have to be on the ground and you have to be on top of your game. Dana is that guy. I truly believe that Dana was put on the Earth to run the UFC.
DUCE No bullS%$^? Are you kidding me? Just look at he says "Pride will still exist." "Fedor is the #1 fighter in the world." etc. Someone who lies or constantly counterdicts themselves is not a no BS type of guy. Lorenzo is happy with Dana. I get it. I think its a ticking time bomb.
Y!: Dana seems like one of those guys who, if you get on his bad side, you never get off. There was the whole thing with Matt Lindland, for instance. He's a fighter who by all rights should be in the UFC but is not. Do you talk to him about this and try to mediate any of these kinds of situations?
LF: We talk about different points, but Dana does what he wants to do. He's proven that he has great instincts and most of the decisions he's made have been for the best. Nobody is perfect, but I think Dana White has done a fabulous job building this company into far and away the industry leader and I'm not going to start telling him now how to do his job. He's proven he can do his job without me holding his hand.
DUCE Dana White strikes me as someone who is capable of being dragged down by a Sakuzagate scandle like Pride had. I saw an article I forget where... no wait was it Gross? Eh... yeah it was Sherdog telling the UFC to stop padding itself on the back. Joel Silva of ALL people was passing notes to Rogan( who loves MMA especially Japanese MMA) to say "this isn't Japan" or "He is not fighting in Japan". Which seemed silly me. 1.) Wanderlei is fighting Las Vegas 2.) Isn't this a little like beating a family member. Pride is the UFC and the UFC is Pride. Thats the fact. How can you really say "WE ARE BETTER THEN THEM!" when you are them or more or less "We did everything in our power to kill this brand name so we can promote ourselves over that brand!
BRAND NAME!" Why Joel Silva why? Did you win a bet or... it this ANOTHER pro wrestling rip off scheme of Dana White's. The "Come to Jesus meeting" referance and now something strangely simular but without true meaning "YEAH THAT'LL PUT BUTTS IN SEATS!" comment that Bischoff made Schiavone say about Cactus Jack beating the Rock for the WWF title. UFC is a 600 pound Gorilla WITH THE BALL!
M-1 is the image above
All of the other orgs need to take advantage of some this mistakes the UFC is stubbornly making. I love the UFC and its history but the brand be damned. I am not going to keep buying something because of the name attached.
Rant over. ;D
Not a fan of his. 
Heh!