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Interview/ UFC Co-Owner Lorenzo Feritta (Part 2)
Reported By: Boxing Insider - 01.05.2004 02:04 AM
Lorenzo Fertitta Interview: UFC Co-Owner Part 1 |Part 2
Boxinginsider.com: Could you tell the fans about your other job?
Lorenzo Fertitta: I am President of Station Casinos, a publicly-traded company on the New York Stock Exchange -- I think we're the fifth-largest gaming company in America. The UFC is just something that I am passionate about. It's more of a hobby. Dana White runs the day-to-day operations, and we have a whole staff that kind of runs itself -- And for me, I just come to the events six times a year, hang out, and have fun.
BoxingInsider.com: Do you have any interest in having a UFC and pro-boxing show in the future?
Lorenzo Fertitta: I don't think so. You never want to say never, but right now, I think the future of combat sports is mixed martial arts. You can just look at the generational impact -- I like to say that boxing is your father's sport and MMA is for the younger crowd. That's where the future is.
I'm a boxing fan. Growing up I always watched boxing. I still love it today -- but I really think the future is mixed martial arts.
BoxingInsider.com: How come Station Casinos never sponsors the UFC? Why is it always an outside venue?
Photo: UFC.tv/ Zuffa
Lorenzo Fertitta: It is primarily because of the type of business we run. Our casinos cater to the people who live and work in Las Vegas. We don't really have the type of facilities that could hold a UFC event. Typically, we need an arena that holds at least 8,000 to 10,000 people and we don't have that capacity.
From a sponsorship standpoint, whenever you go do a deal with a casino, they're the exclusive sponsors. So there’s really not a fit there.
BoxingInsider.com: Some in the media and some of the fans frequently wonder -- because the UFC is not making major money -- that you might decide it's not worth your time any more. How do you respond to that?
Is this a viable financial investment for you or is this just for fun? What are your long-term plans for UFC?
Lorenzo Fertitta: Right now . . . we are still a start-up company. We have a lot that we need to accomplish before we can talk about what I would call "making a good investment." Right now it is primarily a hobby. We are committed to it and we're trying to do everything we can to expand the market and get it to the point where it is a thriving business. It’s not unlike a lot of other companies -- sometimes it takes five to six years to really get everything rolling in the right direction.
BoxingInsider.com: But do you have plans to be around for the next five, ten, twenty years? People are afraid that one day, they might log online and…
Lorenzo Fertitta: Well, I certainly hope that we are. It is my intention, my plan to continue.
BoxingInsider.com: Is the UFC profitable now?
Lorenzo Fertitta: No.
BoxingInsider.com: What needs to happen for the UFC to be a profitable company?
Lorenzo Fertitta: Obviously we need to generate more revenue. It's a fixed cost business. We're outlaying a significant amount of capital every time we do a fight and there's a threshold, a break-even point. We need to get over that hump. We need to increase our number of pay-per-view buyers and we need to exploit some different revenue opportunities that are out there through selling DVDs, merchandise, and things like that. But really what it comes down to is pay-per-view buy rates.
BoxingInsider.com: Are you guys going to move into more merchandising -- like the action figures and all the stuff that the WWE used to do?
Lorenzo Fertitta: It's kind of a Catch-22. I think in order for it to be successful, we are going to have to have… a free TV deal where we're reaching the masses.
Everybody says, “Oh, why don't you do this or do that?”
The reality is that not that many people outside of the hard-core fans really know the UFC and the fighters. I do feel the audience is getting bigger, but I think once we get a TV deal, then we'll go out and do some of those type of things.
We've just launched our DVDs which will be out in retail stores at the end of December. That's kind of the first stage of getting back into that business.
BoxingInsider.com: I see you are wearing a Pride T-shirt?
Lorenzo Fertitta: It's just my funny way of showing up at a UFC event and putting on the competitor's T-shirt. That's usually what I do. I either wear a competitor’s T-shirt or a fight T-shirt -- something like that.
Really I've got a lot of respect for those guys. I was over at the show, a couple of weeks ago, the Grand Prix -- and I was blown away -- 67,000 people, an incredible event. I've got a lot of respect for them. I think they also have respect for us. I also thought it was a cool T-shirt.
BoxingInsider.com: One last thing thing -- We asked Rampage before Pride, 'What's the biggest difference between UFC and Pride?'
He said the difference was money. What needs to happen to the UFC to be on the same level -- as far as compensation for the fighters?
Lorenzo Fertitta: I kind of call 'BS' on that. I don't think, from a money standpoint, we're that much different. I think, philosophically what's happening, and the way that the sport is moving now is different. Pride uses a format that we tried to use when we first started when we took over the company -- which is basically stacking the cards, where every fight is a blockbuster and you're paying every guy a certain amount of money. What's happening to the sport in America is similar to what happened in boxing over the years. Because you have guys who are turning into superstars, they demand more money. When the market and the revenues aren't growing along, it means that if they're going to demand more money and they're really what the draw is -- the reason that people are coming -- then other fighters on the card are going to get less money. So you are getting the haves and the have-nots.
The card that we had in September was a great card. There were great fights -- but people came to see Tito fight Randy. We tried to put on an entertaining card, but it was about Tito and Randy. Quite frankly, they were the guys who made the money. So that's really what the difference is. I think that we pay the superstars in our sport as much -- and compete at that level with Pride. It's just that we don't have sixteen fighters on the same card who are making that kind of money.
Lorenzo Fertitta Interview: UFC Co-Owner Part 1 |Part 2
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