UFC Boss White: Sphere Is Booked For UFC Fight Show In September 2024; ‘I Love Challenges’ — Dana White

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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer

UFC bossman Dana White has put on Ultimate Fighting Championship fight shows in some very exotic places around the world, but now the fight event master has set his eyes on staging a UFC event close to home in Las Vegas in one of the most unique places.

Coming in 2024: a UFC fight show  in the Sphere venue behind the Venetian just off the Strip.

White said UFC has worked out a deal with Madison Square Garden and Sphere Entertainment to hold a UFC event at the Sphere for Mexican Independence Day in mid-September 2024.

“It’s going to be a massive challenge . . . I love challenges,” White said, promising he will put on the greatest combat sport event in the venue. “Everybody keeps saying to me they don’t understand how you’re going to put an Octagon in there . . . We are already working on creative for the show.”

White has hinted in the past about his intense interest with staging a UFC event at the Sphere.

“I’m literally obsessed with this,” White told Pat McAfee on McAfee’s show last month.

The Sphere is primarily a music venue. But the 17,500-seat venue can be used for sports events like a boxing match or MMA fight.

And it’s included in this week’s Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix, with grandstands and seating set up outside the Sphere for F1 fans who want to spend the money to watch the car race. The Sphere opened Sept. 29 with a U2 performance.


 

Alan Snel

Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.