429. Cage Kings: The Business of the UFC with Michael Thomsen

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Michael Thomsen is a freelancer writer, author, and UFC tragic from New York.

He is the author of Cage Kings: How an Unlikely Group of Moguls, Champions & Hustlers Transformed the UFC into a $10 Billion Industry, which unpacks the rapid rise of the UFC an mixed martial arts, the UFC’s business model and economics, the one man tour de force that is longtime UFC president Dana White, the role of the UFC’s owners over time - SEG, Zuffa and Ari Emanuel, and the organization’s anti-competitive behaviors and adversarial relationship with its fighters, which aren’t employees, but independent contractors - most of whom would earn more working a run of the mill admin job in the public sector.

Thomsen’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate, Vanity Fair, The Daily Beast, Aeon, Forbes, Al Jazeera America, Adult, Talking Points Memo, Los Angeles Review of Books, Complex, The Paris Review n+1, Bookforum, The Believer, The New Republic, Kill Screen, The New Inquiry, and The Millions.

With that, here’s my conversation with the one and only, Michael Thomsen.

Show Notes: 1. Twitter: https://twitter.com/mike_thomsen?lang=en 2. Get Cage Kings: https://www.amazon.com/Cage-Kings-Unlikely-Champions-Transformed-ebook/dp/B0BHTM6YRY 3. Email Mike: [e-mail]