Dana White: The People's Executive

where people actually speak their mind and don’t get shit on for it. That’s the only world that should exist.

In the midst of shaking hands and talking to fans, one fan approached Dana and told him that in his excitement to meet Dana, he got a $300 speeding ticket. Upon hearing the news, Dana White opened his wallet and gave the fan $300 to pay off his ticket.

Holy shit it’s Rome!

Awesome piece, and I agree with pretty much all of it. People that don’t like his style are firmly planted in the old-fashioned business world.

I’m curious to see what Nate has to say about this piece.

There are still occasions where he crosses the line.

Frankly, there are a lot of people in the world that drop part of their paycheck at the casino on payday. It’s more intelligible than what many CEOs do with their money and actually makes him a more of an every man. The other aspect of gambling that people so often ignore is that watching someone gamble allows to viewer to live vicariously through the gambler. Poker is on TV for a reason and it’s not because of the quality of the game. It’s creates a sense of excitement to see a lot of money on the table and imagine what it would be like to bet a house.

People gamble, rich people gamble more money than poor people. Just because it doesn’t fit with what you would like to do with 500k doesn’t mean the viewer condemns Dana. In fact, viewers would likely put themselves in Dana’s shoes rather than scoff at his poor choices. Dana becomes the friend that you go to the casino with, you may not gamble, but you do like watching (and rooting) for him to win.

But I still see him becoming a parody of himself down the road, much like Al Davis.

DOes he make mistakes? absolutely!

But, I think overall he does a pretty good job of giving the fans what they want when they want it.

I met him when Anderson was fighting in Chicago and he took pictures with us and heard out our concerns about some of the fight cards in the past. He’s a personable guy.

Doesn’t quite cuss as much, but he speaks his mind just as much—-and Cuban “speaking his mind” means he has picked up a few million dollars in fines.

Parts of me feel both ways about the gambling issue. It’s his money, he can do what he wants with it. But at the same time when the loss is more money than I will see in years of work and enough money to completely change most peoples lives in some way its hard to fathom the waste and not be a little bitter.

The speeding ticket thing was awesome though.

Instead of shaking their heads in shame when Dana goes off on swearing tangents at press conferences, media members should try to grasp what he’s doing and why he’s doing it.

Conflict between DW and the hardcore fans/media is structurally inevitable because 95% of hardcore fans/media think the casual fans are idiots (I do to). He can’t present himself in a way that appeals to both the hardcore fans/media and the casual “idiot” fans who actually pay the bills.

Dropping $300 like that? What a degenerate philanthropist. =)

Dana White is a real fan of the sport and seems to absolutely love to interact with UFC fans (my favorite story was him accidently giving out his phone number but still talking to people who called him). He absolutely loves his product and his consumers and that is what shines through. His business decisions are a whole separate issue but his PR work is gold, heck even the polarizing stuff tends to appeal to his consumers. He seems like a great guys, just a very opinionated and bullheaded guy. This kind of PR wouldn’t work for say the CEO of Procter & Gamble but for the President of a cage fighting company that targets 18 to 36 year old males it really works.

Dana and mark cuban are def in the model of vince and theres nothing wrong with that. All three want to be the best in their respective businesses and do a lot. WWE has put most of their competetion away whether by outlasting or outclassing. Mark has made the mavs relevant when playoffs come just about each year if not all since he took over. Dana has the UFC, the viewed “big league” of mma. I commend all three and hope that yes, owners become more like this. If nfl owners as a whole were like these guys i doubt we’d have a possible strike looming.

I said earlier that I don’t think Dana droping huge cash is bad PR, but I’m starting to get the impression that certain people in the media are more concerned than anything else. If the real worry is that Dana is in the process of going broke and battling with a gambling addiction then less should be made of the amount of money he lost and more to his betting tendancy.

I have had a family member destroyed by gambling and he will never recover. Any money he has is gambled away to the point where rather than have teeth he continued to gamble and couldn’t eat solid food for years. It’s a serious addiction with life altering ramifications.

That said, people can gamble without this sort of result. Without knowing how Dana is gambling it’s just speculation to say that he is going down this road. Progressively larger bets when down, long losing sessions compared to short winning sessions (getting stuck), and huge emotional response to results are typical signs of problem gambling.

Is he is not super-educated or elitist. He seems like a regular guy who made something of himself through hard work and passion. This means people can relate to him. They don’t see him as some rich heir of an aristocratic family, but as a regular guy they could have gone to school with who happened to blow up.

Adding that to the way he interacts with the fans really is very endearing.

He has his issues and does cross the line like Black Les says, but overall I’d take White over say Jobs any day.