Dana White Reveals Details In Interview

The most audacious media spectacle in recent memory was hatched on the floor of Madison Square Garden, less than two weeks after the 2024 presidential election. 

On Nov. 16, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump walked into New York’s most famous arena to loud applause from a friendly crowd, as Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass” played. 

Trump was there for UFC 309, and he was joined by Rock, Elon Musk, and incoming cabinet secretaries Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, among other dignitaries. But when he walked out, he did so alongside Dana White, the CEO of UFC. 

Amid the fights, Trump took a moment to make a suggestion to White, a longtime personal friend dating back to the early days of UFC. 

“He leaned over to me and says, ‘we should do a fight at the White House,’” White recalls in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I said ‘yes, we should.’ I didn’t know what he meant … I was thinking maybe there’s some room that he’s thinking about where we’d have it. He’s like, ‘no, we’re gonna do it outside on the South Lawn.’” 

“When [White] initially mentioned the idea of putting on a UFC event on the South Lawn of the White House, I truly did not believe him. I thought he was kidding,” says Craig Borsari, the chief content officer of the UFC. 

“He’s funny, but he’s not a joke around kind of guy,” White says of Trump. “Literally, when he says something, consider it done.” 

And so that offhand suggestion will become a reality on June 14, when the MMA promotion hosts UFC Freedom 250 in a custom-built arena on the South Lawn of the White House, a made-for TV (or at least streaming) event, the likes of which has never been seen before, and probably never will be again. 

A series of literal cage matches, set in front of one of the most famous buildings in the world, in front of an audience expected to include some of the most powerful people on earth, including political leaders, celebrities and global CEOs, with UFC parent company TKO Group Holdings (led by CEO Ari Emanuel) betting on “Super Bowl-level” media exposure, and a defining moment for the company’s nascent $7.7 billion deal with Paramount Skydance (led by CEO David Ellison). 

“This will be one of the greatest and most historic sports events in history, and President Trump hosting it at the White House is a testament to his vision to celebrate America’s monumental 250th anniversary,” says White House spokesman Davis Ingle. 

The UFC Freedom 250 event is nonetheless a gambit for everyone involved given its high-profile, and a costly bet by TKO, which is covering all the costs, from building the temporary arena and hospitality structures to replacing the grass after the event is over. Aligning the visceral sport so directly with the Trump White House also puts the UFC in the middle of a politicized culture war at the exact moment it’ll have its highest exposure to the general public.

“Losing money is never fun. I did that for quite a few years in the early days, but you have to jump on an opportunity like this, no matter what it costs you,” says White. 

Mark Shapiro, the president and COO of TKO, told Wall Street analysts in February that the event will cost the company “upwards of $60 million,” and that it “could move north.” TKO expects to lose about $30 million on UFC Freedom 250, even after securing high-profile sponsorship deals from the likes of Ram Trucks, Crypto dot com and Monster Energy. 

“I want to be clear about something: We will not profit from the White House event independently. We will not be making money on America’s 250th anniversary,” Shapiro said. “This is an investment for the long term. This is about earned media.”

“This is about sampling, new fans, casual viewers, a spectacle on a stage that will ultimately expand our audience, our viewership, and our success on Paramount+,” he added. “We see this once-in-a-lifetime stage as a strategic investment to drive subscriber acquisition at Paramount+, massive audience sampling for the UFC overall, and Super Bowl-like earned media across the globe.” 

Paramount fully expects to capitalize on the moment, now six months into their seven-year deal. Efrain Miron, head of content strategy and licensing for Paramount direct-to-consumer tells THR that the company has already been closely monitoring the data. 
 
“One of the things that’s been really cool about seeing this UFC audience show up — which again is not a monolith, but it’s the audience so far that has shown up — is that we have found that on average, the folks watching UFC on Paramount+ are 15 years younger than our average audience before UFC, so for us that’s a massive unlock,” he says. “We also then observe what they are watching when they show up on the platform. So far, some of those signals have been really interesting. You have a lot of crossover with the South Park audience, so that’s been interesting for us. So then we take all that information and we say, okay, how do we make sure that when this audience shows up so they’re getting the right recommendations on the service?” 

The goal is to get UFC fans to watch more content on Paramount+, and to introduce more fans to the UFC and grow that business, helping to amortize the cost of the long-term deal. 

Borsari says that his team has been in near daily contact with Paramount executives in the lead-up to the White House event. 

“I love the excitement from their side, how excited they are to be in the business with us,” says White, who adds that “I think Landman is the greatest show ever in the history of television.” 

But of more significance to the UFC is how Paramount+ dramatically reduces the friction to watch its fights. The profile of the White House event could make that clearer for people who weren’t aware of what the change in streaming platforms really means. 

“When we were on ESPN, we were behind two paywalls. You had to pay for ESPN+, and then you had to pay for the pay-per-view,” White says. “With the Paramount+ deal, it costs less for the year than it did for one pay-per-view, and you get everything UFC plus you get all the other great programming.” 

Executives from both TKO and Paramount are banking on enormous tune-in, from both hardcore MMA fans and curious gawkers, to ultimately benefit both of them. 

Late last month, an enormous structure was erected on the South Lawn, towering over the White House mansion behind it, and sparking intrigue on Instagram, X, and other social platforms. 

The structure is called “The Claw,” says White, and it was built in Belgium before being shipped to Philadelphia, where it was loaded onto trucks and brought to D.C. 

The custom structure is specifically meant to deliver the vision White has for the event, providing cover and lighting without obstructing any views. 

“All I want to see during this fight is the White House, the full White House,” White says. “I don’t want to see a light, a microphone, any type of rigging, and if the fight goes the other way, I want to see the [Washington Monument], that’s it. Those are the only things I want to see.” 

“There are a number of things that we’re doing to try and take advantage of where we are and show a lot of respect and admiration for this location, which is one of the most iconic buildings in America,” says Borsari. “We had to take a number of visits to the White House to take very accurate laser measurements of the south lawn to make sure that we could put the structure that we wanted in place. And the whole idea of putting that structure in place was to create the biggest window possible and frame the White House in the background in all our wide shots throughout the night.” 

The company is planning similarly made-for-TV moments, like a press conference and weigh-ins at the Lincoln Memorial, and there will be an 85,000 ticket fan fest taking place in the Ellipse adjacent to the White House complex, with Zac Brown Band headlining on June 13, and a watch party for the fights the following evening. 

It’s not clear if one of the original ideas, which would see the fighters walk out to the Octagon from the Oval Office, will come to fruition, though the UFC has made custom championship belts for the winners of the bouts. 

Tickets for the fan fest were distributed for free to fans, but tickets to the event itself remain scarce and invite-only. The lions share belong to Trump, White says. “I think he’s up to 1,200 now. I have 300, Ari Emanuel has 400.” The remaining tickets will be distributed to members of the military. 

But White and Borsari have also been planning out the programming that will fill the downtime between fights. Normally, in an arena, that would include sizzle reels, hype videos, and raucous music. UFC Freedom 250 will be a little different. 

White was coy about what other things they have planned that night, though expect a hefty dose of patriotic programming. 

“This is a very patriotic moment for us to integrate a little bit about the history of this country, a little bit about celebrating our heroes and celebrating our independence,” says Borsari. 

“What this fight is really all about, and why we’re doing it at the White House, is it’s the 250th birthday of America. So from the first fight of the night until the main event, we will tell the story of America,” White says, rebuffing the notion that he wants the event to be seen as a political one. “You’ve got the far right, you’ve got the far left, and people thinking that this is going to be like some type of political thing. This is the 250th birthday of America. That’s the story that we’re going to tell. If you are American, this is relevant to you as an American. Everybody, no matter what your politics are, or any of that other bullshit.” 

Of course, the political optics are tough to ignore. The event, after all, was sparked by a suggestion from President Trump, and it will be held on his 80th birthday, with a slew of high-profile members of Congress and his administration expected to attend. 

And Paramount is in the midst of attempting to complete a $111 billion mega-merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, which is still undergoing regulatory review. The event may not be about politics, but politics will be humming in the background regardless. 

Trump, of course, is an avid consumer and critic of media, which may explain his enthusiasm for the event, knowing how unprecedented it is. 

On May 6, he hosted the fighters competing at the event in the Oval Office for a photo-op, showing off renderings of the arena in front of one of the custom championship belts. Trump reminisced about giving White and UFC a shot at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, before MMA was widely accepted as a legitimate sport. 

“They couldn’t get any arenas because it was so violent. I was able to give them the first four or five fights,” he recalled. 

Of course, there are still plenty of unknowns. 

White recalls attending a dinner in the Rose Garden last month, a dinner that opened his eyes to the challenges of hosting a series of fights outdoors, in Washington D.C., in June. 

“The three big problems, as far as I am seeing right now, are rain, lightning, and a ton of bugs,” White says, recalling black gnats (“I’m talking clusters of them”) swarming guests at the dinner. 

“As soon as I left the White House, I called my head of production Craig [Borsari], and said the black fly experience that I just had is brutal,” he adds. “So imagine this massive powerful claw, and the lights that are going to come with it, you’re going to have gnats, moths, maybe bats. I don’t know what the hell’s going to show up, but you know these are all the things that you have to think of leading up to this thing.” 

And he notes that fighting outdoors is not ideal, especially if the weather is too hot, or too wet. It was a concern also raised by Joe Rogan, the podcaster, comic and UFC commentator, who will be working the event. 

Rogan, however, is still bought in to the idea, embracing the unprecedented nature of the whole thing. 

“It’s going to be a spectacle. Whether I was there or not, I would be watching 100 percent,” Rogan said on his podcast May 29. “I think it’s awesome that Trump, this is one of the things that I like about him. He’s like, ‘Fuck it. Let’s do it.’ He puts on cage fights on the White House lawn. That’s nuts. He’s fearless.” 

Trump, whose personal interest in crafting media spectacles is well-documented, seems to share that point-of-view. Talking to the UFC fighters in the Oval, he turned to the cameras in the room and said matter-of-factly: “This will be the greatest show on earth.”