Dana White Makes 'Laughable' Claim About UFC's White House Event

UFC president Dana White has been one of the top hype-builders in sports for years now, so when he finally got the opportunity to have a once-in-a-lifetime event on the White House lawn, he hyped it to the moon. Though he might have wanted to pull back a bit.

In a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio ahead of the UFC Freedom 250 this weekend, both White and Secretary Rubio predicted that over one billion people all over the world would be tuning in for the event.

"A billion people all over the world will be watching America celebrate its 250th birthday with the White House in the background and some of the best athletes in the world in that Octagon..." Rubio said.

Impossible

Super Bowl LX, the most watched sporting event in America this year, pulled in 126 million viewers. The 2022 FIFA World Cup, which featured 32 countries in one of the biggest sporting events of all-time, pulled in 1.5 billion.

The notion that a mixed martial arts event (taking place at the same time as the World Cup for that matter) could do nearly eight times better viewership than the Super Bowl and almost as many as a World Cup is simply laughable, if not physically impossible.

Even people who love the sport of MMA laughed at the idea that the UFC event could do that well:

"I doubt this card will even get over 10mil viewers," one user said dismissively.

"They have lost their goddamn minds if they think it's doing a billion. 30 million at best. This card under delivered in terms of name value, bit needed Jones vs Pereira or a Conor fight. That might have pushed it to 50 million," wrote another.

"Dana also thinks Power Slap is bigger than Real Madrid and now 1 Billion people will watch his White House event 💀 The truth is that the fight card is mid and even if it's special for Americans, they don't have 1B people who will just tune in to see a fight at the White House. Globally, people will not care as much about a WH fight if the card is not great," a third remarked.

Dana White and the UFC powers that be have a ton to be proud of. They parlayed years and years of support for President Donald Trump into a chance to put on a sporting event unlike any other.

The magnitude of the event itself being a celebration of America's 250th birthday (albeit a few weeks early) should be enough without having to flat-out make up impossible numbers.

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