Dana White’s Next Frontier: Making Jiu-Jitsu Mainstream

Less than four months after Dana White and UFC parent company TKO Group Holdings unveiled plans to expand into boxing, a similar plan is now unfolding for Brazilian jiu-jitsu. UFC will stage its first jiu-jitsu live event on June 25 as part of UFC’s international fight week in Las Vegas. 

That three-match card is already being aided by a companion content series, UFC Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Road to the Title, that premiered Monday on UFC’s YouTube channel, and will continue for an additional seven episodes. 

The new competition, like in UFC, will feature divisions for both men and women. As TKO expands its presence across combat sports to include mixed-martial arts, boxing, power slap, professional wrestling, and now this additional endeavor, jiu-jitsu was a foundational interest for White—particularly as it also comprises one part of MMA.

“The reason that me and the Fertitta brothers bought the UFC [in 2001] was initially because of jiu-jitsu,” White tells Front Office Sports. “We started training in it, became obsessed with it, then started meeting with a lot of the UFC fighters, and thought about what could be done there. Now, nearly 30 years later, we’re getting back into jiu-jitsu.”

Different Climb

While the new TKO boxing effort, now called Zuffa Boxing, involves additional Saudi investment, the jiu-jitsu initiative will be an internal one. White said earlier this year that he plans to spend between $10 million and $12 million over the next year to develop the new competition. 

Despite UFC’s run of success in recent years, however, there is unquestionably a heightened challenge in this latest endeavor, as jiu-jitsu is very far from a mainstream spectator sport, particularly in the U.S. White intends to lean in to a burgeoning youth participation component to help drive fan interest.

“The sport is big. Millions of people train in it all over the world,” White says. “When we were growing up, our parents might have put us in karate or taekwondo or something like that, but this is the martial art that parents are putting their kids in now. … We plan to take this sport and introduce it to the mainstream.”

He also sees jiu-jitsu being part of a future, multi-event “TKO Takeover” that started earlier this year with a weekend run of WWE, UFC, and Professional Bull Riders events.

“We could absolutely go into a city and have jiu-jitsu on a Thursday, power slap on a Friday, Saturday night is the UFC, and Sunday or Monday is WWE,” White says. “The list goes on and on. That’s absolutely part of the thinking.”