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Vince McMahon, the former WWE owner, personally torpedoed a potential UFC deal with NBC in 2011. According to UFC CEO Dana White, McMahon used a clause in his WWE media rights deal to block the UFC from airing on USA Network, which was a key part of the NBC agreement. This led to the UFC signing a seven-year broadcast rights deal with Fox instead.
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How Vince McMahon Tanked a UFC Deal
Vince McMahon had a clause that allowed him to block other combat sports from airing on USA Network, where WWE's Monday Night Raw was a flagship show. This forced UFC's Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta to meet with McMahon in an attempt to negotiate an exception, but ultimately, the UFC partnered with Fox instead.
“So I’m on the 1-yard line, we’re about to get a deal done with NBC,” White said on Stephanie McMahon’s What’s Your Story podcast. “One of my big deal points was that The Ultimate Fighter had to be on USA [Network]. We’re literally in New York for days hammering it out with all the executives over there. Finally, they come back and say ‘we’ll do it, we’ll put The Ultimate Fighter on USA.’
“So the next day we come back, and we’re about to sign the deal and do all this stuff, and they’re like ‘we can’t believe this, we didn’t know this, we just found out — Vince McMahon has the right to determine whether another combat sport can come onto USA.’ I’m like what? How is that even f*cking possible?”
White and Lorenzo Fertitta, the former UFC owner, even met with McMahon to try to persuade him to allow the deal, but McMahon refused, saying "I don't want you on the network". The UFC's partnership with Fox ultimately worked out well, and White believes that buying G4, a network the UFC considered acquiring, would have been a bad idea, as it ceased operations in 2014.
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