Dana White struck gold with UFC as it has quickly emerged as one of the most-watched and most lucrative sports leagues on the planet. But as big as UFC has become, boasting genuine superstars and a global reach, it sounds like White is just as excited about a sport that revolves around relatively random individuals slapping each other in the face.
Back in 2022, White launched Power Slap, which pits two competitors against each other as they take turns hitting each other with full-force, open-palmed slaps until one person cannot physically recover. It’s a brutal sport that has obviously been linked to brain damage and some competitors have even died as a result of competing. However, it also generates more than 1 billion views per month across all platforms, and White could not be more optimstic about its future.
“It could be just as big as the UFC,” White told Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit on Thursday.
The league has nearly 4 million subscribers on YouTube where it streams its events live. However, Power Slap has found its biggest success with short-form content like TikTok and YouTube Shorts with White describing the engagement as “astronomical.”
“When you look at the numbers, we have like the most viewed YouTube short ever in sports on Power Slap, the most viewed ever in sports on TikTok, and the numbers are just astronomical on what we pull on this thing,” he said. “And it’s global. It’s already a global business.”
Understandably, White was initially skeptical about finding sponsors for a league that centers around relatively unknown individuals slapping each other, but apparently that hasn’t been an issue.
“I thought sponsorship was going to be tough,” White told CNBC. ”[Power Slap] has more sponsors [in its first two years] than the UFC had in 10 years.”
So it sounds like the next big sport is here, you’re just most likey to see it while mindlessly scrolling on your phone.
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