Why UFC Vows Never to Return to Vegas Sphere

Posted on: September 11, 2024, 07:58h. 

Last updated on: September 12, 2024, 10:37h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Myths.

UFC 306, scheduled for Saturday, September 14, will be the first sports event held at the Las Vegas Sphere. It could also be the last if a lesson is to be learned from UFC CEO Dana White’s admitted mistake.

With production costs mounting and ticket prices in freefall, UFC 306 (aka Riyadh Season Noche) will be the first, and possibly last, sports event to be held at the Las Vegas Sphere. (Image: UFC)

Tickets for UFC 306 sported the highest face value of any event ever staged in Las Vegas. They started at $2,500 for seats in the rafters and topped off at $23,437.50 for floor seats to the right of the Octagon.

As of Wednesday evening, only a few hundred of those face-value seats remained on Ticketmaster out of an original allotment of 18,500.

This doesn’t mean that the event is nearly sold out, however. Thousands of tickets are still floating around reseller sites, where their prices have plummeted. StubHub has them starting at $720, Vivid at $502, and Seat Geek at $531.

On Ticketmaster, verified resellers (scalpers, basically) are losing their shirts on full public display. Right behind two of the original $23K seats (FLR3, Row 3, Seats 3-4) are five reseller seats on offer for $5,500 each (FLR3, Row 5, Seats 5-12).

The dots represent all the tickets for UFC 306 still available on Ticketmaster three days before the event. The blue ones are seats that never sold, the pink ones are on offer from verified resellers. These don’t represent the only available tickets, however, as thousands are listed only on other reseller sites. (Image: Ticketmaster)

If these seats are still available hours before the event, their prices must be lowered much further if they are to sell at all. That includes the hundreds still listed at face value on Ticketmaster unless UFC gives them away to VIPs, which is likely.

Why So Much?

Branded as Riyadh Season Noche UFC, for Mexican Independence Day two days later, the 10-bout spectacle promises an excellent lineup headlined by bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley defending his title against No. 1 contender Merab Dvalishvili.

But not $2,500-$23K-a-ticket excellent.

According to Billboard magazine, Dana White felt obligated to charge that much to pay for the show’s $8 million production costs — specifically, producing video content for the Sphere’s massive hi-def screen.

Think about U2,” White told SNY Sports on September 10, referring to the Irish rock band’s Sphere residency last year. “Whatever that cost them, they had 40 nights to amortize those costs. We just have one.”

Now, however, Billboard claims that White’s production costs have ballooned to $20 million, even after UFC partnered with outside producers, including Valerie Bush and Antigravity Academy, who will screen their own 90-second videos between bouts.

Of course, UFC will recoup some of its financial losses via pay-per-view sales, but, as White told MMA reporter John Morgan recently, “We’re not ever doing an event at the Sphere again.”

White Lies

Last October, White told ESPN’s Pat McAfee that “I have become obsessed with the Sphere,” adding that he had his entire production crew check out U2’s residency to conceive of ideas for visuals to envelop the Octagon.

“I’m telling you right now, this place is incredible,” White said.

If the new Billboard story is to be believed, however, White wasn’t being entirely truthful.

According to the trade publication, White never wanted to stage UFC 306 at the Sphere. The Vegas orb only became an option after executives with MGM Resorts signed a deal with boxing promoter Al Hyman to bring Canelo Álvarez v. Edgar Berlanga to the T-Mobile Arena on September 14 — a date White claims that UFC was promised in a 2017 anchor tenant agreement with T-Mobile.

That’s the arena that hosted last year’s “Noche UFC,” whose tickets were priced starting at $120 each.