Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Wednesday, August 13th.

Today on Forbes, Dana White on how UFC landed its blockbuster $7.7 billion streaming deal with Paramount.

When David Ellison sat in the front row at a pair of UFC events in April and June, just

a few seats away from Donald Trump, media analysts wondered whether the 42-year-old CEO of

Skydance Media and son of the world's second richest man, Larry Ellison, was using the opportunity

to smooth over any political concerns about his $8 billion acquisition

of Paramount. The deal, which was held up by Trump's FCC for months, officially closed

last week. But it appears the merger wasn't the only multi-billion dollar deal Ellison was working

on in those ringside seats. On Monday, the Las Vegas-based UFC announced a

seven-year $7.7 billion media rights deal with Paramount to stream all of its fights on Paramount

plus in the United States, with select events to be simulcast on CBS. UFC CEO Dana White tells Forbes he had a pre-existing relationship

with Larry Ellison and spoke with David, one of the many network executives who were looking

to land the MMA behemoth at each of those events. Ellison then swooped in and knocked out

the competition just days after the merger between

his Skydance and Paramount was approved.

White says, quote, these guys came in aggressive with an all-or-nothing approach and said,

We want the whole thing.

The Ellison's are brilliant businessmen and have a whole game plan behind this thing.

I can't wait to be in business

with them. At $1.1 billion per year in average annual value, the UFC will now earn nearly

as much in media rights fees as MLB, $1.8 billion, the Olympics, $1.3 billion, March Madness, $1.1 billion, and NASCAR, $1.1 billion,

dwarfing the likes of the NHL, $635 million, and the PGA tour, $700 million.

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