Legal Name: | The Ultimate Fighting Championship |
Headquarters Regions: | Las Vegas, Nevada, USA |
Founded Date: | November 1993 |
Founders: | Rorion Gracie, John Milius, Art Davie, Campbell McLaren, Bob Meyrowitz, David Isaacs |
Number of Employees: | 1500+ |
Company Type: | For-Profit |
Area served: | United States of America |
Products of Company: | mixed martial arts promotion company |
Net Worth in 2024: | $5 Billion |
Every game has its own fans as well as its supporters. If you love sports, it is not a must that you be in the field in person. You can decide to do things differently by sacrificing much of your time and resources in supporting those who are actively involved in the field. It doesn’t matter what you are able to do, a few dollars will go a long way and the game will definitely appreciate the fact that you decided to give them a hand. It also provides a field for players to compete which encourages them to become more focused in what they choose to do.
There are many companies around the world that have committed themselves to supporting different talents. One of the most notable companies is The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which majorly supports mixed martial arts. This is a promotional company that is based in Las Vegas Nevada and it is owned and operated by the Endeavor Group Holdings as well as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Silver Lake Partners and MSD Capital through Zuffa, LLC. They have done a lot in supporting and promotion of Mixed Martial Arts which is also known as MMA. Since UFC was formed, they have held many events since 1993.
Well, how well do you know about UFC? If not much, we have compiled all you need to know about UFC’s net worth in 2024, wiki and complete details. Well, if you’re all set, here is what we know about UFC to date.
Inception
UFC was founded in 1993. Art Davie proposed to Rorion Gracie and John Millius to a single-elimination tournament that would be made of eight men known as “War of the Worlds”. Gracie in Action video-series inspired the tournament and it was produced by Gracie Family which is situated in Brazil. The tournament featured Gracie Jiu-jitsu students that would fight against martial artists from various levels and disciplines including kickboxing, kung fu and karate. Martials artists from these disciplines would also be featured facing each other in what they called no-holds-barred combat. The aim would be determining the best martial art. They would also aim at replicating the excitement of the matches that Davie had watched on the videos.
The tournament received great support in every level. One of the people who supported them was a Gracie student and a noted screenwriter and film director Milius who agreed to be the creative director of the event. Davie came up with a drafted business plan and luckily, he was able to convince 28 investors to contribute to this noble course. This became the first capital to start WOW Promotions. Davie had plans of developing the tournament to become a television franchise.
Evolution
SEG and WOW Promotions produced the first event that was later known as UFC 1 and it was held on the 12th of November in 1993 at McNichols Sports Arena which is located in Denver, Colorado. Art Davie’s function in the game was as a matchmaker and a show’s booker. One of the intentions was to help support sports fans and assist them in answering some of the questions they would have in mind about different sports. Some of these questions include; can a boxer beat a wrestler? “Between a boxer and a wrestler, who is stronger?” this is because, in the past, a fighter would only be allowed to concentrate on a single discipline and it proved challenging to stand against a fighter with different skills.
The television broadcast was made of Kevin Rosier, kickboxers Patrick Smith, savate fighter Gerald Gordeau, Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Royce Gracie, shoot fighter Ken Shamrock, karate expert Zane Frazier, boxer Art Jimmerson and sumo Wrestler Teila Tulia among others. Royce Gracie’s submission skills brought a great difference and helped a lot in the inaugural tournament. This earned him the first UFC tournament championship records after submitting Shamrock, Jimmerson and Gordeau in succession.
Everything worked out well and there was no stopping for them. Initially, they worked with a tagline “There are no rules”. This however only worked in the early 1990s but with time, they decided to start operating with limited rules. It banned eye-gouging and biting which allowed techniques such as headbutting, hair pulling, fish-hooking and groin strikes among others. Although all these were allowed at the beginning, during the UFC 4 qualifying match, competitors, Guy Mezger and Jason Fairn, made an agreement not to pull each other’s hair since they both wore back-tied pony tails during the match.
Awards
The UFC started as a passion where fans only wanted to experience how it would feel to have a competition between fighters with different skills. The fight was to be held between wrestlers, mixed martial artists of different disciplines. The first event was meant to be a great success. Luckily, this became the beginning of many other events that followed after the first one. More than 20 years now and the company is still running strong and very successful than they ever thought of.
Net Worth & Earnings of UFC in 2024
According to reports about how far UFC has come is an open secret. Understanding their net worth might prove to be a challenge but it is clear that the company is now worth billions of dollars. We can estimate that it has a net worth of more than $5 billion as of 2024. Dana White did not however release the company for good as the agreement was that 9% of all the company’s future profit will be deposited to Dana’s account.
There is power in creative planning and agreement as this is what led to the birth of UFC. At the same time, it has led to the development of many talents and have also transformed the lives of many fighters.