UFC 306, the primary sports activities occasion held on the Las Vegas Sphere, generated the very best gross income that both the venue or the UFC has ever seen. In accordance with UFC, the 10-fight spectacle earned $22 million in gate receipts, handily trouncing the $17.7 million gross earned by UFC 205 in 2016.
The Octagon is enveloped by the Sphere’s immense video display screen. (Picture: X/UFC)
Nonetheless, UFC spent $20 million to supply the present on the $2.3 billion venue, so its actual revenue might want to come from pay-per-view gross sales.
Although UFC CEO Dana White vowed by no means to return to the Sphere, he softened his stance on Saturday. He nonetheless instructed the assembled media “no,” however stated it was as a result of “I’m beneath contract with MGM.”
In 2017, the UFC signed a seven-year settlement with T-Cell Area, which is co-owned by MGM Resorts, to host at the very least 4 annual occasions on the venue, which is the place White had hoped to stage UFC 306. The Vegas orb solely turned an choice after MGM Resorts signed a deal, a 12 months out, with boxing promoter Al Hyman to deliver Canelo Álvarez v. Edgar Berlanga to T-Cell final weekend.
UFC 306, branded as Riyadh Season Noche UFC for falling on Mexican Independence Day Weekend, featured a bantamweight title matchup through which challenger Merab Dvalishvili destroyed defending champion Sean O’Malley, and a girls’s flyweight bout through which former champion Valentina Shevchenko reclaimed her title from Alex Grasso, who snatched it from her final March.
The occasion bought out of the 16,024 tickets made accessible. Nonetheless, a whole bunch of tickets remained accessible inside hours of showtime on the resale market, with most going for steep reductions from their face values of $2,500 to $23,437.50.
Tickets have been initially priced so White might cowl what he thought can be $8 million in prices to supply a video that would solely be performed on the Sphere’s big hi-def screens. These prices ultimately exploded to $20 million.
Talking on Saturday, White appeared extra targeted on UFC 306’s successes than its pitfalls.
“This factor, I instructed you guys main as much as this, the way in which that this entire factor performed out, tonight was meant to occur,” he enthused on the post-event press convention. “It occurred. We did it. We killed it.”
