UFC 306 at Sphere Pulls in Record $22M for UFC, Sphere

The first sports event at the Las Vegas Sphere produced the highest gross revenue for both the venue and UFC, as Saturday night’s 10-fight showcase pulled in $22 million in revenue, according to UFC.

UFC 306 featured a bantamweight title fight in which defending champion Sean O’Malley was defeated by Merab Dvalishvili and co-headlined a women’s flyweight title fight in which Valentina Shevchenko won the third of a trio of bouts between her and Alexa Grasso.

The UFC night was the first sporting event held at the Sphere, which opened a little less than a year ago. The showcase sold out the 16,024 tickets made available.  UFC also noted the organization saw the largest merchandise sale in its history.

“Literally the whole thing was seamless,” said UFC president Dana White in a post-event press conference. “It was perfect. We didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse – that was our big worry coming in here – but they nailed it.”

For Sphere the event was the debut of the final leg of its three-part strategy for regularly filling the arena – it previously hosted a number of concerts as well as corporate events, with Hewlett-Packard being the first to hold a corporate keynote presentation there earlier this year. The NHL draft also was held at the Sphere. While it hasn’t been disclosed how the $22 million revenue is split between Sphere and UFC, it likely provided Sphere with a better-than-average haul: Last quarter the company averaged about $700,000 per event, including theatrical presentations shown during the day.

For UFC, the gross revenue exceeds the record set by UFC 205, which featured Conor McGregor in the main event at Madison Square Garden. That 2016 event pulled in $17.7 million gross. Still, UFC spent $20 million on developing and staging the show, White told Sportico.

White said UFC used all the capabilities of the Sphere for the event including haptic seats and adding ring lighting in gaps in the Sphere’s wall of video screens to replace the lighting rig usually suspended over the ring. “The whole arena game is starting to go to another level,” White said.

When asked If UFC was so pleased with the results that it would plan more events at Sphere, White dismissed the notion. “No. I’m under contract with MGM,” White said. MGM and UFC have a multityear exclusive contract for Las Vegas performances. MGM made an exception for Saturday’s event at the request of White.