Ask anyone in boxing who is behind Zuffa Boxing and you will get the same answer: Dana White.

They’re not wrong. White is the face, voice and force of personality that drives the promotion’s entry into sports. But if that’s where your understanding ends, you’re missing the story entirely.

Because behind Dana White lies the most powerful corporate infrastructure ever created in the history of combat sports. TKO Group Holdings is not a promotion. It’s a publicly traded multi-billion dollar sports and entertainment conglomerate that has just decided that boxing will be its next growth industry. On the other side of the venture is Turki Alalshikh, a man who has already changed the economics of the sport during the Riyad season and is now the co-founder of Zuffa Boxing.

The people who run this are not just fighting people. They are among the most powerful operators in the global entertainment and sports finance market.

Numbers that should catch your attention

TKO Group Holdings just released its full-year 2025 results on February 25, 2026. The numbers say it all about the scale of what boxing is currently dealing with.

Full-year 2025 revenue: $4.735 billion. Net income: $546.2 million. Adjusted EBITDA: $1.585 billion, up 47% year-over-year. Free cash flow: $1.159 billion. Here’s the forward-looking number – projected 2026 revenues of $5.675-5.775 billion, with EBITDA expected to grow another 41-44%.

For context, these numbers dwarf everything else in boxing combined. TKO operates in over 210 countries and territories, hosts over 500 live events annually and reaches over one billion households worldwide. In 2025 alone, the company returned more than $1.3 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends, and it just announced plans for another $1 billion in stock buybacks starting this month.

This is an entity that now has a boxing promotion.

Boxing doesn’t know the best players

The boxing industry reduces TKOs to one name. But the actual leadership structure goes much deeper.

Ari Emanuel, CEO of TKO Group Holdings. Emanuel is the co-founder of Endeavor, one of the most influential figures in Hollywood and global entertainment, and the man at the top of an empire that now includes UFC, WWE, IMG, On Location, Professional Bull Riders and Zuffa Boxing. He’s not a boxer. He built a holding that treats combat sports as part of a much larger entertainment portfolio.

Mark Shapiro, president and chief operating officer. Shapiro is a strategic architect. He is the executive director of the earnings call and explains how Zuffa Boxing fits into TKO’s broader growth strategy, how the company earns $10 million in management fees just for serving as managing partner of the boxing joint venture, and how each promoted superfight is expected to bring in an average of $10 million. It was Shapiro who called boxing “a strategic opportunity to globally rethink the sport.” When you hear these words from the CEO of a $5 billion company, it’s not an advertisement. It’s a business plan.

Nick Khan, WWE president and TKO board member. The boxers really lack a plot here. Most know Khan, if they know him at all, as “the WWE guy.” What they don’t know is that Khan was negotiating a media rights deal with Top Rank before joining WWE. He has deep relationships throughout the boxing community and is formally listed as one of the executive leaders anchoring Zuffa Boxing alongside White. Khan understands the boxing business from the inside and brings expertise in media rights negotiations that has already changed the way the UFC and WWE monetize their content.

Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority. Alalshikh is the co-founder of Zuffa Boxing, and his role in this endeavor – and in the broader transformation of boxing’s economics – is significant enough to merit a separate discussion. For the purposes of this article, you should know that Zuffa Boxing is a formal joint venture between TKO and Sela, a Saudi entertainment conglomerate backed by Alalshikh-based GEA. He is not a quiet investor. He is the driving force. We will have much more to say about Turki’s influence on sports in an upcoming article.

The infrastructure no one talks about

In addition to the management team, TKO has created a team with earnest boxing credentials.

Tomek Loefflerpresident of 360 Promotions, actually built this thing on the ground. Loeffler has promoted multiple cards on UFC Fight Pass, groomed Callum Walsh ahead of the Zuffa Boxing launch and has credits that include the Klitschko brothers and Gennady Golovkin. White called him “the best matchmaker in boxing.” His 360 Promotions stable is the backbone of Zuffa’s lineup.

Mark Ratner he served as executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission from 1992 to 2006 and is a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Since 2006, he has been UFC’s vice president of regulatory affairs. Ratner was the one who appeared before the Nevada commission to secure the TKO promoter’s license and laid out the plan: 12 to 15 fights in 2026, most in Las Vegas, building fighters from the ground up.

In addition, there is media and production infrastructure. TKO scored IMG — one of the world’s leading sports marketing agencies — i On sitethe global leader in premium experience-based hospitality, in a $3.25 billion transaction that closed in February 2025. IMG is handling media rights negotiations. On Location provides premium event support. They both now serve Zuffa Boxing along with everything else TKO does.

The broadcast team performs Joe Tessitore on a play-by-play basis with Max Kellerman AND Andre Ward as analysts. Rian Scaliaformerly ProBox TV, is also part of the matchmaking operation.

And distribution? Media rights deal with Paramount Skydance includes Zuffa Boxing Most essential+ with simulations enabled CBS — Guaranteed 12 events per year, of which up to 16 planned for 2026, including international cards and up to four super fights in tents per year. A full summary of Zuffa Boxing’s action plan for 2026 can be found in our report: “Zuffa Boxing plans up to 16 events in 2026 as part of global expansion.”

What does this mean for boxing

However, this does not mean that the rest of boxing will be forgotten. Not at all.

Eddie Hearn and Matchroom are not closing up shop. PBC continues to perform at the highest level. Top Rank has been in business for over 50 years and has weathered every seismic shock that sports has thrown at it. Frank Warren and Queensberry remain a force in the UK and beyond – although we have written about it “Zuffa Boxing Outflanked British Boxing” the competitive landscape is already changing. Boxing has always been resilient, and the promoters who kept the sport alive in its darkest moments deserve huge respect for what they have built.

But what’s happening now is something really modern. For the first time in boxing history, a company with the infrastructure, capital, media expertise and production capacity of the largest professional sports league decided that boxing was worth the entire investment. As we checked in “League vs. Stable: Boxing’s Great Architectural Change” The NFL has its own league office. The NBA has its own corporate structure. Boxing, for all its greatness, has always been a collection of independent operators working contract by contract, fight by fight.

The TKO represents something different. Neither better nor worse – different. This is the emergence of institutional-level infrastructure in sports that has never existed before. It could be argued that this is the ultimate validation of boxing’s value. A company with revenues of around $6 billion doesn’t get involved in a sport it doesn’t believe in.

Real question

Dana White could face Eddie Hearn or Oscar De La Hoya on his own in a solo “Dana White Promotions” fight. But that’s not what’s happening here. What’s happening is all of the above – every name, every division, every dollar mentioned in this article – working together under one roof.

Good luck.

The question is not whether boxing will survive a TKO. Of course. Boxing will always survive. The question is whether the people involved in the sport understand what they just walked through the door and whether they are ready for what comes next.

Because if all you see is Dana White, you’re not looking demanding enough.