{"id":330354,"date":"2024-09-11T19:58:36","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T00:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=330354"},"modified":"2024-09-12T10:37:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T15:37:11","slug":"ufc-never-coming-to-vegas-sphere-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ufc-never-coming-to-vegas-sphere-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Why UFC Vows Never to Return to Vegas Sphere"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 <\/em>if a lesson is to be learned from UFC CEO Dana White\u2019s admitted mistake.<\/p>\n

\"\"
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)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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

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

\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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).<\/p>\n

\"\"
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)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Why So Much?<\/h2>\n

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\u2019Malley defending his title against No. 1 contender Merab Dvalishvili.<\/p>\n

But not $2,500-$23K-a-ticket excellent.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Billboard<\/em> magazine,<\/a> 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\u2019s massive hi-def screen.<\/p>\n

Think about U2,\u201d White told SNY Sports<\/em> on September 10, referring to the Irish rock band\u2019s Sphere residency last year. \u201cWhatever that cost them, they had 40 nights to amortize those costs. We just have one.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

Of course, UFC will recoup some of its financial losses via pay-per-view sales, but, as White told MMA reporter John Morgan recently, \u201cWe\u2019re not ever doing an event at the Sphere again.\u201d<\/p>\n

White Lies<\/h2>\n

Last October, White told ESPN<\/em>\u2019s Pat McAfee that \u201cI have become obsessed with the Sphere,\u201d adding that he had his entire production crew check out U2\u2019s residency to conceive of ideas for visuals to envelop the Octagon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m telling you right now, this place is incredible,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n

If the new Billboard <\/em>story is to be believed, however, White wasn’t being entirely truthful.<\/p>\n

\n

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 \u00c1lvarez 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

That\u2019s the arena that hosted last year\u2019s \u201cNoche UFC,\u201d whose tickets were priced starting at $120 each.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s admitted mistake. Tickets for UFC 306 sported the highest face value of any event ever staged in Las […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":330355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3313,81886,82964],"tags":[83447,91875,83667,83919,81987,91874],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy UFC Vows Never to Return to Vegas Sphere - Casino.org<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"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\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ufc-never-coming-to-vegas-sphere-again\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why UFC Vows Never to Return to Vegas Sphere - Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"UFC 306, scheduled for Saturday, September 14, will be the first sports event held at the Las Vegas Sphere. 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