"How else is Dana White going to be able to gift his buddies $250k for their birthday?" - Fans are unhappy after ESPN+ jacks up its monthly subscription price by 43%

Dana White and the UFC are being criticized by MMA fans after a reported hike in the ESPN+ subscription cost. The subscription fee will reportedly increase from $6.99 a month to $9.99 starting August 23rd.

Bloomberg first reported this 43 percent price hike, which was later confirmed by MMA Fighting. A UFC PPV, which costs $74.99, can only be purchased if one has an ESPN+ subscription.

The price increase comes at a time when the UFC and its president, Dana White, are being lambasted for underpaying the UFC fighters. White recently took a lot of flak for gifting the Nelk Boys’ Kyle Forgeard a whopping $250,000 on the YouTuber’s birthday.

In response to a tweet by MMA Fighting regarding the ESPN+ price hike, many MMA fans jibed at the UFC and White.

One fan tweeted:

“How else is Dana going to be able to gift his buddies $250k for their birthday?”

Another Twitter user asserted:

“yeah i’m cancelling my subscription. only reason i had it was because it was less than $10.”

In addition to these responses, some fans pointed out that (for some users) the ESPN+ app works about "50% of the time." Others joked that the UFC president "needs to make that 250k back."

Some fans took aim at the Nelk Boys, too. Meanwhile, others indicated that they’d rather follow other MMA promotions such as Bellator and PFL:

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Dan Hardy’s take on Dana White and UFC fighter pay

Former UFC fighter Dan Hardy responded to a video tweeted by Kyle Forgeard that showed Dana White handing him $250,000. ‘The Outlaw’ opined that the UFC president could perhaps pay all the top-15-ranked UFC fighters $250,000 each on their birthdays.

Dan Hardy then emphasized that the idea isn’t farfetched and White can afford to do that. In a jab at the UFC relating to fighter pay, Hardy tweeted that instead of White, the UFC could pay its fighters the money from the billions it garners:

"Just for context - it's only $45 million, which would leave approximately $455 million from his profits off the sale of the UFC....or they could pay it out of the Billion dollars profit that the UFC makes per year, which would leave them around $955million.”