Zuffa

TKO Operating Company, LLC
Zuffa
FormerlyZuffa, LLC (2001–2023)
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustrySports promotion
FoundedJanuary 2001 (January 2001)
FoundersFrank Fertitta III
Lorenzo Fertitta
Headquarters
Las Vegas, Nevada
,
United States
Key people
Ari Emanuel (co-CEO – Endeavor)
Patrick Whitesell (co-CEO – Endeavor)
Dana White (president – UFC)
ParentTKO Group Holdings
SubsidiariesUltimate Fighting Championship (2001)
World Fighting Alliance (2006)
Pride Fighting Championships (2007)
World Extreme Cagefighting (2010)
Strikeforce (2013)

TKO Operating Company, LLC (TKO OpCo), doing business as Zuffa (/ˈzfə/), is an American sports promotion company specializing in mixed martial arts. It was founded in January 2001 in Las Vegas, Nevada, by Station Casinos executives Frank Fertitta III and Lorenzo Fertitta to be the parent entity of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) after they purchased it from the Semaphore Entertainment Group.

Zuffa was acquired in 2016 by a group led by WME-IMG (later Endeavor) including Silver Lake Partners, KKR, and MSD Capital for the price of $4.025 billion. After the Endeavor deal closed, the Zuffa logo and brand were retired from on-air usage in favor of the UFC brand, but Zuffa was retained as the legal name of the company.

In April 2023, Endeavor announced that UFC would merge with the professional wrestling promotion WWE to form TKO Group Holdings, a new public company majority-owned by Endeavor, with Vince McMahon serving as an executive chairman of the new entity and White remaining as UFC president, replacing Zuffa as parent entity of the UFC. The merger was completed on September 12, 2023. Zuffa, now a TKO subsidiary legally known as TKO Operating Company, remains as the copyright holder of UFC events.