Ari Emanuel bet big on Trump, now it's time for the UFC to collect
The Democratic insider hedged by leading the anti-Biden coup but it's MAGA-time now
Like every oligarch, UFC & WWE owner Ari Emanuel had a lot riding on the results of the 2024 US Presidential Election. Especially a Donald Trump win.
Unlike the vast majority of American oligarchs, Ari did a great job of playing both sides. The master of leveraging humans against each other for his own benefit pulled yet another rabbit out of his hat.
The UFC put its all behind Trump
Ever since Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor bought the UFC in 2016, he has pushed the promotion as a blatantly partisan Trump-backing outfit, something the previous owners were careful to avoid.
This year they have ramped it up several notches.
Dana White hosted Trump at UFC 302 making his first major public appearance following his June conviction on 34 counts of “falsifying New York business records to conceal his illegal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election.”
And Trump basically wrapped his campaign by appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast to collect Joe’s endorsement, something Rogan had pointedly refused to do as recently as 2022.
Rogan’s long painted himself as a left-leaning Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders supporter who has called the former president “so fucking dangerous … a guy can incite a bunch of morons to do something really fucking stupid.”
Rogan publicly credited Elon Musk for leading him to support Trump, but I’d be very curious to know if he talked about his decision with Ari Emanuel.
We should also mention the many UFC stars who’ve been campaigning for Trump, including a team heading up an unlikely seeming pitch for Arab voters in Michigan covered brilliantly by Karim Zidan.
Karim points out who was herding the fighters for Trump, none other than one of the UFC’s most important controlled fighter reps:
Ali Abdelaziz, who manages all the fighters attending the Dearborn event and was present himself, has continued to express support for Trump. He previously appeared at Trump rallies during the 2020 campaign alongside UFC President Dana White.
We’ll have more on Ali later on, including his close relationship with a key Trump insider.
Ari Emanuel put his name on the line to dump Biden in favor of Harris
Here’s where the hedge comes in.
Ari Emanuel, despite owning one of Trump’s most high-profile corporate allies, is still a major player in Democratic politics. He proved it with his mid-campaign call for Biden to step aside that led a parade of Hollywood donors to abandon the senile POTUS.
As always Ari was playing multiple angles. The Dump Biden effort greatly weakened rival Hollywood inside player Jeffrey Katzenberg who co-chaired Biden’s campaign.
It will be very interesting to see how long Ari can maintain his status as a mega-player inside the Democratic party even as his UFC and WWE properties feast at Trump’s trough.
After the paywall, Zach Arnold has a very important break down on what a Trump 2.0 White House means for UFC, WWE, and combat sports. It will absolutely impact the fighters and fans.