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A pair of unrelated videos surfaced yesterday that grabbed our attention, mainly for the inaccuracies contained in both. The first is a short clip of an interview former presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy conducted with Dana White. The second is from the Joe Rogan Experience and features a conversation between Joe and former UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub. Eddie Bravo was also there but the meat and potatoes of the clip is mainly between Joe and Brendan.
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Dana White will say anything
In the first video with Dana White and Vivek Ramaswamy, the former POTUS candidate asked the UFC president about fighter pay and how the PPV tiers work. Part of Dana’s response was to claim that the athletes that were receiving PPV points were now “partners” with the UFC, as if there were somehow royalties or residuals involved. Vivek’s complete confusion and inability to grasp a single thing Dana said is worth watching. White spinning a yarn of a kinder, gentler, more fair UFC is SOP for him in interviews with people who operate outside the sports media space. Ramaswamy made a prime recipient of whatever UFC propaganda Dana was ready to feed him.
Brendan Schaub knows more than Joe Rogan…
…About the antitrust case, anyway. But, I digress. In the second video with Joe Rogan and Brendan Schaub, we discussed several points that Rogan either misunderstood or was unaware of (if we’re to go by his comments that he “tries to ignore that stuff”), like how the UFC can hold monopoly and monopsony power—or any of the basic facts of the antitrust case. As a matter of fact, Brendan Schaub seemed like an Encyclopedia Britannica compared to the little Joe was able to offer to the conversation.
“Big Brown” on the other hand, seemed keenly interested and surprisingly knew a lot of facts about the case. And despite claiming he wasn’t aware he was a member of the class action case, he certainly knew the approximate percentages of the revenue split, who the chief plaintiff is in the suit (Cung Le) and most importantly, that the fighters deserve the money they’re asking for. While Eddie Bravo was technically in the room, he only interjected a few times to ask questions.
What else did you talk about besides Dana White & Joe Rogan?
We did manage to get in another topic, the Netflix deal TKO Holdings was able to get finished literally a single day before the horrendous alleged misdeeds of one Vince McMahon came to light. The discussion centered around the UFC’s upcoming deal-end with ESPN and how there are now extra options on the table with streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon and Apple TV.
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