craven.fr (.ox.ac.uk)

On Wednesday I attended my first speaker at the Oxford Union, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana White. I was quite excited about this, not only as it was the first time I would hear someone speak in the famous debating chamber, but because the UFC was something I have followed (off and on) since the Gracie days, and its transformation into a major sport from the pitiful state it was in when White and his partners took it over make the UFC a fascinating business story as well. Also, I had watched the first season of The Ultimate Fighter (which featured White as a judge)—the finale of which, I should mention, is one of the greatest fights of all time—so I knew who Dana White was and thus was interested in seeing him, both as a celebrity, and as a CEO.

In conjunction with his visit he also met with a lot of Oxford athletes and martial artists, and I would say that these and UFC fans made up the bulk of the audience. Honestly if there was any downside to this talk it was that there were empty seats in the house at all, because those who didn’t attend really missed out on a great talk. But I suppose that the intersection of fans between bookish Oxford and the very physical world of the UFC is naturally rather small.

The talk, however, was really fascinating. A former boxing coach from South Boston, Dana White is not your typical CEO, and so even though a lot of the things he said were things you would expect a CEO to say (our company is doing phenomenally well and our growth potential is astronomical), his genuine enthusiasm for the sport and for the UFC's crucial role in it, combined with his straight talking style, made it really interesting to listen to.

Best of all, though, was that after he gave his talk, he opened the floor to questions and took questions for over an hour. This was really interesting, and some of what was said, he insisted, had to not leave the room. In that sense it was a privilege to be there, but it also shows that the enthusiasm on both sides of the discussion was real. The talk helped fill out some of the questions I had had about MMA, namely in relation to boxing, the previous major commercial combat sport. Clearly boxing's descent into a total farce helped create a vacuum in which UFC has been able to thrive, but I was interested to hear White’s take on what would prevent MMA from descending into a similar quagmire.

As it turns out, he's probably the best placed man in the world to ensure that that does not happen, with his in-depth understanding of the boxing business. What was fascinating was his ability to see why boxing wasn't working, and come up with a new way of doing things, and bring that to pass, in such a way that the fighters, the media, and the production all benefit.

That ability to create something totally new, to find new solutions and do what others thought was not possible is exactly what we’re learning in our MBA courses on strategy and entrepreneurship. And here was a man who had done it. It really brought a lot of points home for me. The importance of passion, for what your business means and what its core values are, beyond just making money, has also been an early theme in our classes. (Companies that know what they stand for perform better than those that do not have such a clear sense of core purpose.) Dana White’s talk was a powerful illustration of all of those themes, and I am really glad I attended.