UFC CEO Dana White was profiled on CBS’ 60 Minutes, covering fighter pay, his relationship with Donald Trump, and protecting his fighters’ ability to say anything they want.
CBS’ 60 Minutes dedicated a segment to White just weeks after its parent company, Paramount, inked a $7.7 billion deal with the UFC for its entire U.S. rights beginning in January 2026 and running for seven years.
The piece was hosted by Jon Wertheim, who previously wrote Blood in the Cage, chronicling the development of MMA in the U.S and UFC’s explosion after The Ultimate Fighter.
UFC’s new deal with Paramount, doubling its rights fees at ESPN, led to Wertheim asking if the fighters will see a similar impact with White stating, “I can’t sit here right now and tell you it’s double, it’s one-and-a-half, it’s triple. But fighter pay, it’s gonna be good”.
During the Cung Le-led lawsuit against the UFC, internal documents at the company revealed the percentage of revenue that went to the fighters. The UFC paid between 16% and 20% of its revenue toward all fighter payments between 2012 and 2020.
The UFC CEO has stated publicly that fighter bonuses will go up after announcing the Paramount deal.
White reiterated his defense of free speech and indicated there would be no punishments for anything said publicly by his fighters, “I’m a big believer in free speech, and unfortunately, probably the most important speech to protect is hate speech.”
This was not always the UFC’s approach, as they had installed a code of conduct for its fighters. Violations of this led to Nate Diaz being fined $20,000 for the use of a homophobic slur on Twitter in 2013, suspending Matt Mitrione for a rant about transgendered fighter Fallon Fox in 2013, and Miguel Torres being fired by the promotion after making a rape joke on Twitter in 2011.
When Torres was released fourteen years ago, White had a different stance: “There’s no explanation for that. There’s absolutely nothing I could say to make any sense of that. And the fact that he even thinks that’s funny or that’s a joke, it disturbs me. It bothers me”, he told SI.com.
Another topic covered on 60 Minutes was White’s close relationship to President Donald Trump, with the mention of Trump’s Taj Mahal hosting UFC events, beginning in November 2000 (before Zuffa bought the company).
White defended the presentation of Trump at UFC events, where his appearances have grown from on-camera mentions akin to other celebrities, to having his own custom entrance and walking out to Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass” and a special video produced after Trump was elected last November.
White said that he would treat any current or past president with the same respect, “If President Obama called and said, ‘I’d like to come see a fight,’ we’d be like ‘Buy some tickets and good luck, or whatever?’ No! The sitting President or the ex-President of the United States wants to come to your event, you treat them with respect”.
This is another shift White has made over the years, telling Sean Hannity in 2020, “They don’t want to hear what your opinions are or who you’re voting for, what you’re doing, they want to get away from everything in their life and they want to focus on two, three, four hours, however long the sport is when you turned it on. If you want to listen to that stuff, turn on any other station, you will hear all of that stuff you want to hear. When you tune in to UFC, you are there to see fights.”
Hours after the 60 Minutes piece, Paramount and UFC officially announced their multi-year deal to bring Zuffa Boxing to Paramount+ next year.
