Just 24 hours after its 200th event, Ultimate Fighting Championship is reportedly set to be sold.
According to TMZ Sports and other outlets, sports and entertainment talent agency WME-IMG has agreed to purchase UFC for about $4 billion.
A New York Times report says the deal will be made official as soon as Monday.
Largest sale in history of sports. #UFC sold for 4 billion to WME-IMG and MSD capital. Fertittas and White small % pic.twitter.com/b7Fj0ZXs4x
— Chris Maathuis (@sports8) July 11, 2016
"Backing the deal are the private equity heavyweights Silver Lake, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and the investment firm of the billionaire Michael S. Dell," the New York Times reported.
Current UFC owner Dana White will "still have a major presence" as president of UFC, according to TMZ, while current CEO Lorenzo Fertitta will step down.
"Although the deal has been agreed upon, we're told the deal will take six weeks to two months for final signatures," TMZ reported.
UFC 200 took place in Las Vegas on Saturday.
In May, ESPN's Darren Rovell reported UFC was on the market. UFC strongly denied those reports at the time.
LOL: @danawhite says UFC is not for sale and that I'm not a "fan of facts." We had 5 independent sources on this pic.twitter.com/ST17klo1XK
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) May 11, 2016
@danawhite ??
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) July 11, 2016
