By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
UFC is losing more than $100 million in gate money from not selling tickets to fans for its fight show events during the COVID-19 pandemic, UFC President Dana White said Friday after weigh-ins for Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 38.
“A big problem for all sports is the gate. We’re going to lose over $100 million this year,” White told a small group of reporters at the UFC Apex building, which will host Saturday’s fight night. “It would be much easier for me to sit back and say, ‘Let’s wait this thing out.’ Waiting this thing out is a good option for a lot of people.”
White discussed UFC’s financial situation around the 9:45 mark of this video in response to a question posed by Channel 3 reporter Amber Dixon regarding gate revenue.
But UFC generates revenue from other fight event sources, like pay-per-view buys that were more than 700,000 for spectator-free UFC 249 in Jacksonville, Florida May 9.
And don’t forget UFC’s media rights deal with ESPN, which will be broadcasting Saturday’s fight event from the Apex, which was unveiled nearly a year ago to house live events. The building is a long walk from UFC’s headquarters off the 215 beltway in the southwest Las Vegas valley.
Little did White know he’d be using the Apex a year later to host the first major live sports event in Las Vegas after the pandemic-created economic shutdown in Nevada in 2020. There hasn’t been live sports in Las Vegas in nearly three months.
White did say staff is wearing masks in response to guidelines in Nevada and he will be in his office watching Saturday’s UFC event so he won’t need to have a mask there tomorrow. He said he’s tested all the time, saying he’s the most tested guy around.
“I don’t have to wear masks at press conferences,” he said. “I must be one of the most tested people on earth.”
It’s unclear when sports fans will be able to attend games and generate ticket revenues for teams and sports leagues.
“It’s my job to figure it out,” White added later in a text to LVSportsBiz.com.
But White had said UFC would be the first live sport to return to action in the U.S. during a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 Americans. He noted UFC has not laid off any of its workers or forced staff to take pay cuts.
And White vowed UFC would be the first to have the first fans back, too, at a live sports event in the U.S.
Here are the final five fights for Saturday.
And the prelims.
Here are the state of Nevada COVID-19 virus stats as of Friday.
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