Yesterday I watched UFC head honcho Dana White interviewed on ESPN’s Jim Rome is Burning. Dana White is probably the Mark Cuban of sports commissioners, the closest real sports come to the bombast of a Vince McMahon, but that’s not the reason I’m concerned about something coming out of the interview. White seemed dismissive of attempts to compete with UFC such as Strikeforce, but that may not turn out to be the best approach. White said UFC could be on network television right now, maybe even years ago, if they had received the right TV deal, and attacked rival MMA organizations (the deceased EliteXC being the first to come to my mind) for rushing into any old TV deal too fast too soon. White also proclaimed that UFC could be among the biggest sports in the country once they got the right TV deal.
I’m concerned, just a little, that White may be looking too hard for the right TV deal, and not settling for a good enough TV deal. If White keeps biding his time waiting for the perfect package, he may find himself vulnerable to a challenge, and possibly being overtaken, from a rival organization that’s willing to settle for maybe a weaker TV deal than White wants but run by better people than the showrunners of the IFL or EliteXC. Dana White just may be too much of a perfectionist for UFC’s own good, and even if MMA does achieve the heights White has in mind, I still think White’s needlessly leaving open an opening for the organization leading it to those heights not to be UFC.
Of course, that’s not even getting into what comes across to me (outside the interview) as somewhat dictatorial tendencies, but maybe that comes with the territory of arranging the cards manually…