Joe Rogan reveals unique UFC contract out: ‘If he leaves, I leave’

If UFC president Dana White ever decides to move on from the mixed martial arts promotion, Joe Rogan would follow.

That’s according to Rogan himself, who recently expanded on a unique clause in his contract linked to White’s UFC fate.

“I don’t think about retiring. If Dana White quits, I might quit. But that’s it,” Rogan said on his podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” as covered by Awful Announcing.

“It’s actually in my contract. Yeah, if he leaves, I leave. Yeah, so, in my contract, if he leaves, I don’t have to stay.”

Rogan, 57, originally joined UFC in 1997 as a post-fight interviewer but parted ways with the promotion a short time later.

When White, 55, became president of the organization in 2001, he persuaded Rogan to re-join a year later as a color commentator.

“I wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t for him. He’s my friend. He talked me into doing it. I mean, I started working for the UFC before him. I started working for the UFC in 1997 when it was nothing,” Rogan said.

“Nobody was watching. We did it at a small, like a high school auditorium in Dauphin, Alabama. You had to take a propeller plane to get there.”

White previously divulged on the “Games With Names” podcast in 2024 about how he tapped Rogan for the job.

“When we bought the UFC, the company was based in New York, so I jumped on a plane, flew out to New York, and I started cleaning out the old offices. I was emptying all these boxes and sending s–t to Vegas that I thought I needed to keep from the office. They had a VCR and f–king tapes for days. I mean, I must have watched 250-300 tapes to make sure that it wasn’t anything, whatever,” White told host Julian Edelman.

“So I pop in this tape, and there was this talk show, ‘The Keenen Ivory Wayans Show,’ the oldest Wayans brother had his own talk show, and they had Joe Rogan on there … and I knew Joe Rogan from ‘Fear Factor’ … and Joe Rogan was talking about how bad-ass UFC fighters were and what they would really do to some of these karate guys that were in movies and s–t like that, and I was like, ‘Man, this guy knows what he’s talking about, he’s smart, he’s funny, he’s articulate,’ so I reached out to Rogan, at that time I think it was on the internet. I reached out him, we started talking, and I asked him if he’d like to work for us and be a commentator.”

White explained that Rogan worked the first dozen shows “for free” in exchange for sitting in premier seats at events.

“Joe and I have been super close friends for a very long time,” White said. “I would do anything for Joe Rogan.”