Zuffa, LLC (/ˈzuːfə/) 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. The word “Zuffa” is an Italian word (pronounced [ˈdzuffa, ˈts-]), meaning “fight”. On July 11, 2016, Zuffa announced that it would be purchased by a group led by WME-IMG including Silver Lake Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and MSD Capital for the price of $4.025 billion.^[1]