Joe Rogan reveals UFC contract has an out if Dana White leaves

When Joe Rogan isn’t hosting one of the most popular podcasts on the planet, he’s often working his other job as UFC’s lead analyst.

The longtime UFC commentator has been calling fights for the circuit since 1997, but recently revealed that he has an interesting clause in his contract that would allow him to leave his ringside seat under one condition: if UFC CEO Dana White quits. On a recent episode of the JRE MMA Show with guest Ilia Topuria, Rogan explained why he negotiated the clause.

“I don’t think about retiring,” Rogan began. “If Dana White quits, I might quit. But that’s it,” he followed up. “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.”

“Why that, something personal?” Topuria asked.

“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. 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,” Rogan replied.

Now, it seems unlikely that this clause would ever be used. Dana White ever leaving UFC seems pretty far-fetched, though those rumors have certainly circulated in the past. And even if White did leave, it’s no certainty that Rogan would want to leave as well. He’s called fights for nearly 30 years, it’s clearly something he loves to do. It’s hard to imagine a UFC without both White and Rogan involved in some capacity.

But if things do go belly up, it seems like Rogan has negotiated an escape hatch.