Dana White tells insane story of how cocaine dealer indirectly helped massive ESPN-UFC deal come through
During a recent interview with 10X Health Systems' Grant Cardone, UFC President Dana White dilated the bizarre story of how a cocaine dealer inadvertently helped in a massive ESPN-UFC broadcast deal.
White revealed that former ESPN President John Skipper didn't want to ink the broadcast deal with the premier MMA promotion. However, once Skipper's cocaine dealer went public with his drug use, he was replaced at ESPN by Jimmy Picaro, who was a big fan of the UFC:
"John Skipper ran ESPN... hates UFC. Our (UFC's) FOX deal is up and we were probably not going to end up doing another deal with FOX... John Skipper was never ever going to take the UFC, so we're in a very tough place. [Then] John Skipper's cocaine dealer is going to rat him out. So he has to tell Disney, yeah my cocaine dealer is probably going to go public. So he has to step down from ESPN... Who do they put in as the new president? Jimmy Picaro, who ran Yahoo Sports for years and I've known him for a long time and he is a great dude and he loves UFC... and we end up doing the ESPN deal when our deal is up."
Dana White tells John Skipper story.
https://t.co/HRm656D0jA
According to a report by Sportsmediawatch, ESPN has held digital and linear TV rights for the UFC since 2019. The deal reportedly cost the broadcast giant around $300 million a year.
Place your bets for the upcoming UFC fight night main card and earn $$$
Grant Cardone details how his friendship with Dana White started
UFC President Dana White is a big advocate of Grant Cardone's alternative healthcare program, 10X Health Systems. Earlier this year, in an appearance on The Action Junkeez podcast, White revealed how the company essentially saved his life.
Watch Dana White talk about 10X health systems below:
Apparently, Cardone and White initially met during the 2020 10X Growth Conference in Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. During a recent episode of the podcast, Cardone revealed that it was American radio host Kerri Kasem who facilitated the meeting:
"So we were doing a big conference here in town, Mandalay Bay. We had twelve thousand sold out [Arena]... Three days everybody pays... The big event is what sucked him in... and Kerri [who is also friends with Dana] must have said my friend Grant Cardone is in town doing this big event, let's go over there...[and he said] call the guy, tell the guy I want to see the deal."
Watch Grant Cardone talk about Dana White below:
Cardone added that he and the UFC president ended up doing an interview at the 10X Growth Conference:
"And then he came in we talked. I said you want to go out on stage with me? And we did an interview out there."