Ari Emanuel Says COVID Nearly Ended Endeavor: ‘I’d Never Had to Fire That Many People’
thewrap.comFight Island” COVID bubble events that inspired other pro leagues to continue amid travel and social distancing restrictions.“Keeping the UFC on, you know, we did about — I might be wrong here — but I think about 70 percent of our revenue in the COVID year,” Emanuel said. “We had our ESPN deal.
We then started making deals for writers. So we stored all the cash. We didn’t let anything out. We let people go, which was horrible, or furloughed them.”“Did you think for a time, though, that you might—?” Dubner asked.“Oh yeah,” Emanuel replied. “There was three months there I was like — I — you know, I mean, it was bad.
And we were just counting cash. Like, how do we make sure the cash can last?”Later in the interview, which took place before the Writers Guild of America strike began, Emanuel gave his thoughts on the future of artificial intelligence. “My son Leo is at Michigan, and he’s in computer science,” Emanuel began. “He and I were having this conversation.
And I’m telling him, “programming is going to go away.” And he says, ‘Dad, here’s my opinion about it. Computer versus computer in chess, draw.
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