FanPost

Fedor what? UFC Toronto Success May Bring More Events To Stadiums

It may have been clouded by the endless amount of "Fedor (blank)" material that’s taken over the MMA world, but over the weekend the UFC released some staggering information about there biggest event to take place that hasn’t even taken place yet….of course, UFC 129. On Saturday February 12 the UFC announced that it had sold an estimated total of 55,000 tickets for their debut show in Toronto’s Rogers Centre for an estimated total gate of $10 Million.

Let’s put that into perspective really quick. Prior to this event, the UFC’s previous gate record was UFC 66: Liddell vs Ortiz 2 and it drew $5.4 Million in Las Vegas. So from UFC 66 all the way to UFC 129 they stayed under $5.4 Million for their gate. In between these events we saw UFC 71: Liddell vs Jackson, UFC 83: GSP vs Serra 2, UFC 91: Couture vs Lesnar, UFC 94: GSP vs Penn 2, and even the ultra hyped UFC 100. Although, these are all powerful events that had powerful fight cards none of them had quite enough to break records. The UFC’s first event in Toronto and the Canadians are already breaking records. This goes to show us Americans just how strong the fan base is up North.

What this should also be very telling about this is the UFC’s future plans. At first, when asked about where they would hold their first Toronto-based event, Dana White was a little bit uncomfortable about it because their brand has thrived on it’s "intimate experience" it sets at it’s shows. This was the reason Dana White wasn’t thinking about doing an event at Cowboys Stadium. That was until he went to Texas to watch Pacman do some work on Joshua Clottey’s face. After that event was the first time he eased up on doing events inside of stadiums. He told reporters that the huge jumbo-trons they hang from the center of the stadium are what pull everyone in together.

After the UFC’s success, both in popularity and financially, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the UFC start to do stadium shows more and more often for it’s biggest and best cards here in the US. Cowboys Stadium is obviously going to be the first one; at least that’s the impression I get from them. Passed that, it’s just about anyone’s guess. It seems to me that at every Q&A or interview that, when asked, Dana says "yes" to going every where around the world for an event; so it shouldn’t bother any of us that they will probably become more and more comfortable with doing stadiums as time goes on and more and more fighters become real superstars like GSP or Brock Lesnar.

The UFC’s roster, at this point, is looking to be pushing 300 fighters. This stat alone, even with the number of cuts they’ve been doing lately, is reason enough not to worry about your local UFC events coming to an affordable arena near you.




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