Dana White is so confident in his new slap fighting promotion that he believes it’s now more popular than massive sports franchises like Real Madrid.
White recently appeared on the podcast FLAGRANT when he briefly touched on the rising success of Power Slap, the promotion inspired by viral clips of slap competitions in Europe. The UFC president founded it in 2022.
Since starting the promotion, multiple videos had similar viral success. Its most popular clip on TikTok, for example, has amassed more than 350 million views.
@powerslap Jewel Scott #knockouts hit different 🧨 #powerslap #slap ♬ original sound – Power Slap
“I was like, ‘What if I did this,”” White recalled thinking at the time, “‘made it an actual sport, got it sanctioned, and put good production value behind it?’ The answer is fucking billions of views — billions of views globally!
“Think about this: we started this thing 15 months ago; and right now, on YouTube, we have more subscribers than NHL, MLS, NASCAR, PGA, Barstool Sports. We have over a billion YouTube views. Eight of the top 12 YouTube shorts, against other major sports, are Power Slap.”
White then used those figures to make an incredibly bold statement.
“We have more followers than every single professional sport,” he said. “Every professional sports team, we have more followers than them in 15 months.”
Comedian Andrew Schulz asked if that included major soccer clubs like Real Madrid.
“I don’t know about the soccer teams,” White said, “but I would say yes.”
That appears to be far from the truth. As of Thursday, Power Slap has 2.58 million subscribers on YouTube. Real Madrid has 13.7 million.
On TikTok, where the short-form content that White mentioned thrives, Power Slap has 4.6 million followers. Madrid has 45.2 million.
That gap even more jarring on Instagram, where Power Slap’s 3.9 million followers pale in comparison to Madrid’s 162 million.
While the promotion is undoubtedly a success — White says it’s now worth around $750 million — it’s not yet on the level of some of the biggest franchises on the planet.
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