Don Gold did a lot of great things for the UFC in his years with the company, spearheading the development of five top-selling video games, a home video program that helped keep the sport alive when things were at their darkest and the UFC's successful launch into the home fitness market. But to employees at Zuffa, the UFC's parent company, Gold will always be the man behind the party.
For more than a decade, Zuffa has closed every year with a blockbuster private Christmas party, described by former UFC public relations chief Jen Wenk as "infamous." The first year Kid Rock played a bowling alley for a small group of employees. Other years it was the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Joan Jett on stage.
"The beauty of it was, we never told the employees who was going to be performing. It was always a surprise," Gold, who is retiring after 10 years with the company, told Bleacher Report. "Except once. Snoop Dogg being who Snoop Dogg is, it was pretty evident who it was. When you got into that club, it was pretty evident it was somebody who really liked marijuana."
Gold's UFC journey goes all the way back to the very first event and, of course, involved much more than party planning. Already looking ahead to the home video market, then-UFC President David Isaacs invited Gold, an executive at Trimark, to see the event he would soon be pitching him. Gold agreed to make the trip to Denver in November 1993 and, like many, fell in love with the beauty and brutality of mixed martial arts.
"I saw the future that day," Gold said. "My life changed dramatically. I took over all the worldwide rights to home video and all the merchandising."
The UFC was more than a product. It was an idea and one that took a bit of explaining, especially to skeptical executives in an era that saw politicians attacking entertainment products at every turn. Gold became a UFC evangelist, taking stars such as Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie on the road to engage in another fight—this one for shelf space.
"Back in those days retail was a huge part of the business. Pay-per-view had so many issues because of the nature of the UFC. But home video was really a home run. My job was to make sure they understood what UFC was," Gold said. "I would take these folks with me and they would explain what they did for a living. If we got the buyer at Blockbuster Video excited about the sport, it was a big deal. That was a major order and we were growing one retailer at a time."
As the UFC struggled in the late 1990s, facing political pressure that crippled its PPV business and made it almost impossible to operate in much of the United States, Gold moved on to other pursuits. But when Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta bought the UFC in 2001, they brought Gold back into the fold.
In the early years of Zuffa's reign, Gold and UFC President Dana White talked about the DVD business daily. At the time, after all, it was the only positive news the struggling company had every month. While live events failed to get off the ground, video had always been UFC's saving grace. And White wasn't above doing whatever it took to make things work.
"Dana and I used to go to local retail stores, him to the Tower Records in Las Vegas and me to the one on Sunset in Los Angeles," Gold said. "When it wasn't that busy we'd remove the movies from display cases the studios had paid for and put the UFC product in. We got away with it for a little bit, and then The Ultimate Fighter came out and he started to get recognized and got busted doing it and had to stop."
That kind of multitasking was typical at the time for a small company that was looking to build upon a big idea.
"It was this small little company of less than 10 people," Gold said. "And these 10 people had never promoted the sport, never done a live event, Had never done anything. Really what they were was fans. If you look at where we were and where the UFC is now, it's a remarkable story."
Like everyone else at Zuffa, Gold was able to grow professionally with the company. Home video may have been his calling card, but soon he was delving into the music business with Interscope and developing an award-winning video game with THQ. Through it all, he worked closely with White and had the chance to see behind the gruff face the UFC president wears in public.
"After my wife served me with divorce papers, he was calling me two or three times per day to check up on me and invited me to come to Vegas to spend time with him," Gold said. "He just has a heart of gold. That's the Dana I know. He's always been loyal to me and to anybody who works hard. I've never honestly been in a room with him where he's yelled at an employee. He yells at issues, but he doesn't really yell at people. I've never seen him go after anybody or embarrass anybody in a room. At least not an employee."
Gold's swan song with the company was the creation of UFC Fit in 2014. The project, a UFC-inspired fitness program, won a 2015 Greensheet award for infomercial excellence and launched yet another new revenue stream for the UFC.
Here we come MEXICO!!! @donniegoldufc & I are about to get you @UFCFIT!!! pic.twitter.com/bPstl2zpOk
— Mike DOLCE (@TheDolceDiet) November 11, 2014
"I spent a year doing research about how to do an infomercial before I felt comfortable enough to do a presentation for Lorenzo and Dana and Frank," Gold recalled. "I had a huge dog-and-pony show and dressed up the boardroom. It turned out I didn't need it. Everybody came in and three minutes into the proposal Lorenzo said 'I want to do this.'
"He said 'do you know how to do this?' And I said, 'I don't, but I'm learning. And I know the right people to hire.' We put the team together, hired Mike Dolce and it's become a really great program."
After years of selling the UFC around the world, Gold is returning home to Los Angeles to pursue other projects. More than 20 years into this century's greatest sports marketing story, he's confident the company and the sport sell themselves.
"The goal was never to hammer it into people's heads how great UFC is. You just had to let them see it. I was always bringing executives to fights, because once you got somebody there to a fight, they were converted," Gold said. "Lorenzo is a really smart guy and a visionary. And Dana has such passion and an ability to see both sides, both the fighters' and the company's. It's a company that was built on passion and a sport that was built by the fans."
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
