Dana White’s attempted shakedown didn’t work against HTA

UFC president Dana White, a one-time South Boston bar bouncer and businessman, likes to tell the story of an alleged shakedown attempt by associates of the notorious gangster James “Whitey” Bulger and how he said he refused.

It turns out the Hawaii Tourism Authority also knows a shakedown when it sees one and correctly declined the opportunity to fork over $6 million in state money for the privilege of hosting one of White’s UFC events.

Even if it was to have featured Waianae’s Max Holloway on a proposed UFC 227 card Aug. 4 at Aloha Stadium.

The HTA’s refusal to pay up prompted White to declare at a New York press conference Wednesday that he isn’t bringing a card to Hawaii, “anytime soon.”

This, after Holloway had beseeched White and the UFC to bring a card to Hawaii and, more recently, done them the 11th hour favor of taking Saturday’s lightweight title fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov on six days notice and at a weight disadvantage.

White fumed, “Hawaii was happening this year and it got shut down by the tourism board there. So, it won’t happen anytime soon. We were geared up and ready to go there this year.”

The UFC first threw out the $6 million figure in a Jan. 23 meeting in its Las Vegas headquarters with a five-member delegation from the HTA and Aloha Stadium, making it what would have been the most expensive sports sponsorship undertaken here.

Apparently UFC either thought it was what the NFL got for bringing the Pro Bowl to Hawaii in 2016, or it figured that was just a starting point and the HTA was an easy mark for it.

White’s initial reluctance to hold an outdoor card in Hawaii, where, as he once put it, “it rains every 10 minutes” wavered only when he figured the state would also rain dollars in his pockets.

Told that the Pro Bowl agreement was actually for $5.2 million — the same amount the NFL would have gotten had there been a 2017 game here — the UFC persisted.

There are several problems with that. The Pro Bowl, at least, was a proven draw for Hawaii bringing in 15,000-25,000 visitors a game per year in its 40-year run while there are serious doubts the UFC could have enticed the minimum.

Put a Holloway-Conor McGregor title fight in Halawa and it is doubtful there would even be anything approaching 15,000 seats available for out-of-towners.

For another, Aug. 4 is smack dab in the middle of the peak tourist season when hotels are already packed and a $6 million investment is wasted. Better, the HTA reasoned, to use it as a lure in a more slack period, such as a spring or fall date, at least something post-Labor Day, when there is more inventory that needs to be sold.

So, after its board kicked the proposal around, the HTA countered with a proposal for $1 million, which would have still been the biggest sports sponsorship investment by the group in 2018, officials said.

At that it still stood to be a whopper of a money maker for the UFC through pay-per-view rights alone. Throw in ticket revenue and merchandise sales and the UFC was looking at a financial tsunami.

Instead, the UFC played hardball.

Because, as White can tell you, a shakedown isn’t supposed to be a negotiation.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.