UFC president Dana White said during an interview earlier in December that a cocaine scandal led to a huge windfall for the organization back in 2017.
White told the story while being interviewed by Grant Cardone, a clip shared on Twitter shows. White claimed former head of ESPN John Skipper, who allegedly hated UFC but loved soccer, tried to block all deals between the network and UFC from going through at the time.
Dana White tells John Skipper story.pic.twitter.com/HRm656D0jA
— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) December 21, 2022
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Skipper announced his resignation after 27 years of service to Disney, ESPN’s corporate daddy, White said. It turned out Skipper had a “substance abuse problem” with cocaine, and he was forced out of his position when his dealer tried to extort him, a story he described to The Hollywood Reporter in 2018. (RELATED: Dana White Says Jake Paul Can Test Him For Cocaine If He Can Test Paul For Steroids)
“John Skipper’s cocaine dealer is gonna rat him out,” White told Cardone. “So he has to tell Disney, ‘Yeah, uh, my cocaine dealer is probably gonna go public’ or whatever, so he has to step down from ESPN, right at the time that we’re trying to make a new TV deal.”
Jimmy Pitaro replaced Skipper, whom White knew for a long time and who is a fan of UFC, so the deal was able to come to fruition. ESPN and UFC went on to sign a 5-year, $1.5 billion deal, TMZ reported.