Is the historic UFC 306 event at the Sphere failing? A dive into the current state of the most expensive combat sports event of all time
29/08/2024 14:57
On September 14, the UFC will host their biggest event ever and the most expensive combat sports event of all time when UFC 306 lands at the Sphere in Las Vegas, marking the first combat sports event to take place at the unique venue.
As soon as the event was announced to take place at the Sphere, the hype for the event rapidly rose which of course set the expectations extremely high.
However, despite the expectations, there are several factors heading into the event that could hinder it and make it a failure. Let’s take a look at the current state of the event and the factors surrounding it.
UFC 306 set to rival big boxing event headlined by Canelo Alvarez
One of the biggest talking points heading into September 14, is that UFC 306 is rivaling a big boxing event at the T-Mobile Arena, headlined by Mexico’s biggest star, Canelo Alvarez.
Although UFC CEO Dana White has stated that he is not concerned with the events clashing, I feel there probably is at least some cause for concern.
With both events taking place on Mexican Independence Day weekend, there are going to be tonnes of eyes on Canelo as he is the biggest star from the country, and out of everyone competing across both events, he is the most well-known name.
Something I imagine the UFC is relying on is that the more casual part of the combat sports fanbase would choose to pay for their PPV ahead of the boxing PPV, because of the intrigue of the Sphere.
Having said that, with Canelo being a significantly bigger name and fighting on a huge day in his country’s history, I imagine the boxing event will outperform the UFC in terms of PPV buys.
This isn’t the first time the UFC has gone head-to-head with a boxing event headlined by the Mexican star, as in 2019, UFC 244 headlined by Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal rivaled a boxing event headlined by Canelo vs Sergey Kovalev.
At that time, Canelo’s and Kovalev’s fight was delayed as they didn’t want to directly compete with the UFC BMF title fight, however, that won’t be happening this time around.
Ticket sales for UFC 306 have seemingly not gone as well as expected
With Dana White having recently revealed the event has cost over $20m to create, as expected the ticket prices are absolutely extortionate.
When tickets initially went on sale, the cheapest ticket was an astonishing $3000 due to the limited seating in the Sphere. Despite that, likely because of the initial struggle of shifting tickets so expensive, they reduced the prices and the current cheapest ticket is $757.
Although there are still a lot of tickets available, the most likely reason is because of the pricing so it can’t be said that this is entirely indicative of the event and how successful it’ll be, but it is definitely a factor as to why it may not perform as well as the promotion hopes.
The UFC 306 fight card isn’t as strong as people initially hoped it would be
Outside of Conor McGregor, the event is being headlined by arguably the UFC’s next biggest star, Sean O’Malley, as he defends his 135lb title against Merab Dvalishvili.
Despite it being a very intriguing fight for MMA fans and involving a name that has transcended the sport, the rest of the fight card isn’t very strong at all, and it has been pretty shockingly put together.
The co-main event sees Mexican star Alexa Grasso defend her title against Valentina Shevchenko in a history-making trilogy, but compared to Canelo, her star power is incomparable.
There are only 10 fights on the entire card when typically the UFC PPVs are made up of around 13-15 fights. Outside of the main event and co-main event, there are only four ranked fighters on the entire card, and two of them are women’s bantamweight’s which is regarded as the weakest division in the sport.
It seems as though the promotion is leaning too heavily on the event being at the Sphere, and they are relying on that factor bringing in most of the success but you still need to put together a solid fight card, which this really isn’t.
White has openly spoken about the struggles of nailing an event like this and a specific production team of extremely talented people has been put together to work on it. Somehow, they are going to need to make it a unique viewing experience for people watching at home, and any production mishaps will massively affect the experience.
Ultimately, I do think this event will end up being successful but they need to knock it out of the park considering how much it has been hyped up by White and co.
