The Dana White Case Study: How Sports Fans Perceive The MMA Mastermind

Within the mixed martial arts world there may be no other name that elicits as deep an immediate emotional response as Dana White. Prior to this past Saturday's UFC 108 event a video blog was released by the promotion which featured roughly one and a half minutes of White unleashing a profanity laced tirade on a Sherdog.com employee for not covering the event as he felt the site should. White was upset that the site was not "promoting" the card and was instead focusing on refuting a recent claim by the UFC president that the sport would be the biggest in the world within ten years.

This rant didn't have the far reaching effect of White's last attack on a Sherdog employee in which he called Loretta Hunt a "dumb bitch" and used gay slurs to describe the kind of person who would be an anonymous source.  The homophobic slurs led to GLADD pushing the UFC for an apology, which was quickly offered up by Dana.

For White to continue to expand the growth of the sport he is going to have to begin to capture the imagination of the general sports fans, not just the twenty-somethings who are itching to watch a fight. Those who already follow football, baseball, basketball and other established sports are necessary targets to grow the sport past this point.  Rather than assume that I know how these fans think, I reached out to writers who cover a variety of sports for their take on Dana White.

On Dana White's Ability As A Promoter:

Spencer Hall (SB Nation):

No commissioner ever made a sport better by being its primary public face. As what I'd call a part-time MMA fan, nothing Dana White has ever done has made me think better of the sport or made me want to watch a fight. If he wants to play the heavy behind the scenes, that's fine, but it's not like the sport lacks for personality or interesting character. At best he's a distraction, and at worst he reinforces some very nasty (and inaccurate) stereotypes about the sport.

Dan Levy (On The DL Podcast)

Before saying another word I'd be remiss not to state that Dana White is a very savvy businessman who capitalized on an entire nation's bloodthirst and, through hard work and back-room networking unlike anyone else in the industry has been able to do, turned MMA into a billion dollar brand.

But that doesn't mean he's not a jerk. Wait, I take that back. I've never met the guy. For all I know, he might be a very pleasant fellow, but he portrays himself in these online videos as such a bully it makes you wonder how the business ever got to be as successful as he's made it. Let's put it this way -- I don't know anyone who would watch the way Dana White acts in public and WANT the guy to succeed. And unlike the NBA or the NFL, Dana White isn't responsible for selling an entire sport...he's selling UFC, which is his specific take-it-or-leave-it version of a sport. Yet amazingly, UFC is the only truly transcendent brand in spite of, not because of, the way White treats people who cover it.

Graham Filler (The Rivalry Esq):

I think there are two elements at play here. First, White is exactly what the MMA needs as a leader right now. He attracts the intense fan, a 20something hardass who wants to be drawn into the culture of MMA. Second, as long as White has a good product to sell, he can be outlandish to the max. But if and when the MMA struggles with steroids, lack of interest and no name recognition, then his antics will be viewed as sophomoric and stupid.

Jim Bankoff (SBNation)

He's the most effective commissioner/promoter in professional sports along with Stern and Goodell ... but those guys both benefit from machines and legacies.  He knows his audience.  He caters to it.  If I were to criticize it seems he goes too far in catering to this core.  There is a schtick that goes along with it.  He's probably reached a point where he has to decide how he softens this scthick without alienating his core.

Tyler Bleszinski (Athletics Nation):

To me, Dana White is the perfect personification of the sport he represents.  At its best, it's beautiful, artistic and almost seemingly choreographed.  But at its worst, it's brutal and shockingly savage.  White is exactly the same.  He's smart, possesses great business acumen and is a brilliant marketer, often making all the right moves.  At his worst, White is an unappealing homophobic cretin with far too much testosterone flowing through his veins.

Ultimately, White would probably make the sport less appealing if I cared about what he said.  But I really don't.  To me, the bigger obstacle in the way of me becoming a big MMA follower is how inaccessible the big fights seem to be.  I'm not a big enough fan to pay for the big fights but I loved seeing one when I did.  I'd just go broke if I had to cough up for the PPV constantly and I don't feel like going to a bar every time there's a big fight (I'm married and will soon have two small kids so going to the bar just isn't always possible).  I imagine the UFC could sell some premium advertising if they made one of every three UFC fights on cable or even free TV as opposed to making people fork over $50 every time.

On Dana White's Media Relations:

Tony Johns (Pop Off Valve):

Anyone who's spent any time doing anything media related knows that the primary desire of anyone being covered by said media is "controlling the message." Where many niche sports fall short is that their understanding of "controlling the message" is that the media is there to be ad hoc marketers of their sport at their whim or bequest. That cannot be further from the truth. While many niche sports' media corps - including the one that shadows motorsports - can be permissive, enabling, and incestuous with the sports they cover, even they have their limits, and the insistence with no quarter from a sport - accompanied, no less, by obscenities - that the media submit meekly to their demands definitely crosses the line.

In my experience, threats to credentials never result in submissiveness from the media. Rather, it encourages rebellion at best and disinterest at worst. Nothing makes the media believe that a sport relies on them to survive more than a sport believing the opposite.

David Pincus (Inhistoric)

When you want people in the media to respect you, you don't insult them, berate them or go against them -- take it from Tiger Woods, who has paid the price for going a whole month without an ounce of media interaction. Dana White's intensity and drive has a done a lot for the sport, but ultimately you still have to carry yourself with a modicum of class and dignity, otherwise people could look at the UFC the same way they look at the WWE: a joke. The reason why the WWE is never on SportsCenter, even though it's more financially relevant than boxing, is because Vince McMahon has made it into a sideshow, where he burries himself alive and challenges Donald Trump to hair-shaving contests. The great thing about MMA is the sport itself; it doesn't need to be sidetracked by any out-of-the ring nonsense, and that's exactly what White's doing.

On Dana White As The Face Of MMA For The 2010's:

Scott Christ (Bad Left Hook):

White fashions himself as an "in the trenches" player for the UFC, which in many ways he is. Is he the right person to help MMA continue to grow? I'm not sure, but I'd also have to admit that no matter how I might feel about him from the outside, he has certainly earned the chance to be that guy. And what if he does continue to succeed in growing the sport? If that happens and his act doesn't change at all, eventually, this is all going to be blown up past the blogs and other online sources. If MMA ever truly becomes a mainstream sport, White's public persona will have to change, because he'll then be in the public eye like never before. Some of his behaviors are what TV shows like "Outside the Lines," "Costas Now" and "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" feed on.

Were one of his comments to become a genuine scandal, you might see the UFC decide that Dana White is not, in fact, the right man for a sport that may outgrow him.

Doron Barbalat (Front Office Fans):

I think White has overall been good in helping build up the sport and create a core fan base. However, I do wonder if at this point in time White is the best choice to be the main face of the company. UFC’s main goals now include things like getting sanctioned in states like New York that have been strong in their opposition to the sport, as well as seeking continued mainstream acceptance of the sport by networks and newspapers. While White’s personality may have been able to win over young, male demographics, it may have more trouble with the "old boy networks" he has now set sights on. It may be reason for a more seasoned, politician-like spokesperson to be given a more public role in the company, be it a doctor who can argue for the relative safety of the sport or even a fighter like a Rich Franklin or Randy Couture that can articulate Dana White’s points in a manner more acceptable by mainstream standards.

On Dana White's Ability To Reach Out To New Fans:

Peter Bean (Burnt Orange Nation):

I personally find the guy incredibly fascinating as a businessman and marketer, and the way he's built his sport up with a targeted, coherent strategy catering to an underserved core community reminds me in some ways of what we've done well building our network at SBN -- and nowhere better, perhaps, than in our MMA coverage.

With that said, I'm not in his target audience and some of that strategy indeed makes it less likely that I start tuning into the sport, even as it grows. It's a tough spot for him to be in, I guess. I get what he's doing, but if his goal is to make things more mainstream, he's got work to do to bridge the gap between where he is now and where he'd need to be to pull in someone like me. I see the gay slurs and hyper-machismo and I'm turned off in a very cynical way.

Ryan Hudson (SBNation):

Everything I read about Dana White, in my mind, justifies my decision to not follow the sport. If that makes sense. His actions do a lot to take away respectability from the sport.

Trei Brundrett (SBNation):

I think the UFC suffers for not having a more professional and progressive attitude and policy regarding traditional and social media. It's a one-way street and that only limits the potential of the sport to explode, not to mention the UFC promotion itself. However, MMA is interesting to me because there is so much more fan-to-fighter interaction, especially online. That may be part of the reason that I don't care so much about Dana as a fan. I don't perceive him as standing between me and the fighters.

Scott Christ (Bad Left Hook):

I've read a few comparisons over the years such as, "What would the reaction be if David Stern or Bud Selig said this?" But it's not so cut-and-dry. White has bosses at the UFC, and while a very powerful man in the sport of mixed martial arts, White is not the end of the line on the decisions made for that company. Negatively speaking, he often says things that are ignorant, hurtful or just off-putting. But on the positive side, he can also be a very charismatic guy who seems like "one of the boys" in a way that most of the suits in sports never can. There's a connection between Dana White and fans of the UFC that Roger Goodell will never have with NFL fans.

Dana is likely not holding mixed martial arts back in any way, at least to this point. Chances are the sport has simply gotten to where it's going to get before another difference-making athlete enters the fold. The sport has its stars, but could always use more of them. At this time, his behavior resonates mostly with those that are already along for the ride, or who have already decided that they're not.