Conor McGregor says he was ‘absolutely inspired’ by UFC sale of $4 billion

Conor McGregor was in Las Vegas for UFC 200 when news broke that would alter the landscape of the sport forever. Just days after the bicentennial event, the UFC completed paperwork on a landmark $4 billion sale that transferred primary ownership of the organization from brothers Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta to an investment group led by talent agency WME-IMG.

The $4 billion price tag was instantly historic, a number so big it marked the biggest franchise sale in sports history, and McGregor couldn’t help but admire what the Fertitta brothers had accomplished in just 16 short years since purchasing the struggling UFC for $2 million from founding company SEG.

“I was simply over the moon for them,” McGregor said Monday on The MMA Hour. “To see the work they’ve put in, to see what they’ve done with it, I was inspired by it. Absolutely inspired by it. What was it, the biggest sports sale in history? A little sport that they laughed at. They laughed at this sport. Everyone ridiculed this sport. This sport wasn’t even a sport. And now all of a sudden, with their guidance, it’s the biggest f*cking sports franchise in the world. So I took inspiration from that. That is motivation right there.

“If you’re talking the greatest of all-time in the fight business, it’s that. To be able to get a turnover like that, get in, get rich, get out like that, and build that up to what that was, man, I was blown …

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