Is this because of the pandemic?
Are they lazy because they only care about TV money?
Remember when they’d take all the non PPV shows to smaller markets but drew big gates?
I don’t get why they’re still using the Apex so much unless they can’t sell tickets elsewhere.
Those events don’t draw much box office, and it costs a lot of $ to use arena. They figure rather than lose money or break even (via low ticket prices/unsold & comped) tickets better to avoid arena usage fee and have the events at the apex where they don’t have to pay rent.
On top of that, it’s a huge time saver for them. Instead of negotiating deals with 20 different venues, hotels in 20 cities, flying your tv crew everywhere…it’s a ton of work to bring your show to a new venue. The time and effort it takes to do that don’t appear to be worth the ticket money they’d make in a small venue.
Fair enough but it really takes away the atmosphere for the viewer I feel. I love the crowds.
Yeah fights at the apex don’t have the vibe and same excitement as a crowd but obviously the UFC is all about money and it makes money short term.
The guy that said it’s because they wouldn’t sell is wrong. The few Fight Nights that they have taken on the road have sold well. All of them sold out with around 2 million at the gate. And some of them were weaker than Apex cards. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to which ones stay at the Apex and which go on the road.
The attendance figure for UFC Fight Night 108 fell just short of the UFC-Nashville record of 10,267, which UFC Fight Night 18 set in April 2009. However, it narrowly edge the former live-gate record to set a new mark.
The all-time UFC-Nashville attendance figures include:
UFC Fight Night 18, April 2009: 10,267 attendance, $626,077 live gateUFC Fight Night 108, April 2017: 10,144 attendance, $755,180 live gateUFC on FX 1, January 2012: 7,728 attendance, $334,860 live gateUFC Fight Night 73, August 2015: 7,539 attendance, $454,551 live gate
That is just an article about Nashville. There’s articles about London and many other places where Fight Night cards break gate records.
“on the road”. not in vegas. It costs money to go on the road.
Maybe they feel that they don’t need to grow the sport anymore.
When ufc holds an event in vegas, do they have to fly the fighters in or do they have to get there on their own dime?
What’s the place with the giant guitar outside.
The hard rock?
That had a good vibe.
Or maybe add more seating to the apex
Doesn’t Dana have beef with the hard rock, or was that the palms. They banned him from gambling because he won too much so he said he’d never take UFC there anymore.
They fly everyone in…but the fighters and corners make up a small % of the people for the event. The production people, everyone working the event from the UFC etc
Everything they have set up in Vegas has to be set up again on the road…and I don’t mean physically set up, like the cage…I mean finding a host hotel, working with the local athletic commission, ambulance companies, finding a venue and negotiating that deal (are they union? non-union?)…there’s way more to it than people realize.