Long before Ari Emanuel was leading the charge to buy the UFC for just over $4 billion, he was one of the most successful powerbrokers in Hollywood leading a massive talent agency.
Now Emanuel is documenting
his rise to business success in a “fiery” and “furious” new memoir titled Roll the Calls, which is due out on Sept. 22 from Knopf Doubleday.
The book was written alongside Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer, who previously wrote The Tender Bar.
While Emanuel has become synonymous with combat sports in the minds of fans over the past decade since purchasing the UFC and transforming the company into a multi-billion dollar enterprise, he first worked in the mailroom at CAA — another powerhouse talent agency — before founding his own company called Endeavor.
Emanuel eventually merged Endeavor with another massive talent agency — William Morris — and he became one of the most powerful and influential executives in Hollywood. Of course, Emanuel is now known for owning the UFC and the WWE but he first became a household name after the HBO series Entourage based one of its lead characters on him.
As portrayed by actor Jeremy Piven, Ari Gold was a viral quote machine during the show’s eight-season run and Emanuel has admitted that the accuracy of that character isn’t far off from the way he behaved early in his career.
Prior to buying the UFC, Emanuel represented the promotion in broadcast negotiations including a monumental deal with FOX. After purchasing the UFC, Emanuel helped steer the company to a landmark deal with ESPN and then in late 2025, inked a massive $7.7 billion deal to move to Paramount.
“As a kid, I was often told I’d amount to nothing,” Emanuel said in a press release about his new memoir. “Thank God I didn’t listen because I’ve now worked with so many brilliant writers, directors, actors, artists, journalists, entrepreneurs and investors. From them, and from bitter experience, I’ve learned a lot about success and failure, creativity and persistence. Especially persistence.
“My story is for everyone who feels doubted and especially for that person who’s been told to give up, just quit. If there’s one major theme it’s that every time someone tells you to pack it in, you’re not good enough, you should tell that person to f*ck off.”
