“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,” said Dana White as he praised his production team for the UFC Noche spectacle at Sin City’s famous ‘Sphere’. The UFC broke mu͏lt͏ipl͏e records with the once-in-kind event, including an enormous $22 million gate and merchandise sold. The UFC 306 also became the͏ first an͏d ͏onl͏y promo͏t͏ion͏ to e͏ver h͏old a sporting event at the $2.3 billion, 17,500 seater venue.

But despite the huge success, the CEO couldn’t help but lament the “bad taste” it left in his mouth, as he revealed his plans to completely ditch the venue. But before we get to that…

The scars of Las Vegas are still with Dana White

For the unversed: The UFC Noche’s expenses ran ten times higher than any other UFC event. While the most expensive UFC pay-per-view to date was produced with a little over $2 million, UFC executive vice present and chief content officer Craig Borsari had guessed the Sphere’s budget to be somewhere around $8 million. That couldn’t be farther away from the truth as White ended up spending over $20 million—with over 450 individuals including multiple Oscar nominees, Emmy and Golden Globe award winners involved in the creative process.

The toughest part, as per White, was creating the video content for the venue’s interactive video system and recovering the expenses through ticket sales alone for a one-time event. “Think about U2 [the first band to hold a residency show at the Sphere]. Whatever that cost them, they had 40 nights to amortize those costs. We just have one,” he said in a conversation with with SNY Sports on September 10. Even the ticket prices for the event, earmarked somewhere between $800 to $5,000 was six to 41 times higher than the usual $120 for Noche UFC’s 2023 at the T-Mobile arena. Now add to that, the betrayal White faced from his longtime partner, and things become a little more crystal clear.

MGM Grand–which has an exclusive deal (for over two decades) with UFC to host the promotion’s events at T-Mobile–ditched Dana White in favor of boxing promoter Al Haymon. The venue scheduled a fight between Mexican boxing star Canelo Alvarez, looking to defend his unified super middleweight championship, against Edgar Berlanga on the same day as UFC 306. Talking about the debacle, the UFC executive had complained, “Haymon snatched that date right away from me. The guys at MGM have done nothing but f—ing disrespect me and the UFC for 20 years. It is what it is.”

This wound appears to have cut a little too deep as the CEO took a direct jab against MGM’s executives. Revealing how he’s ready to leave the $160.7 billion GDP worth-Las Vegas behind, White revealed during the͏ post-fi͏ght press conference of DWCS Season 8, “I’m already looking at going to Mexico next year. I want to go to Guadalajara next year for Noche.”

He further added, “They are building a new arena there, and it’ll be done in 2025. I’ll go there. I’m not even thinking about doing Vegas now after the way that whole thing went down. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. We’ll do Mexico, Texas, Arizona—we’ll go to different places now for Noche. Vegas can have the boxing matches.” 

As for other UFC events, the promotion might also be looking at international expansion, with fights scheduled in Macau, Edmonton, Paris and Abu Dhabi this year, according to ESPN. Apart from that, the promotion might also be looking at a second Saudi Arabia event on Feb. 1, 2025 (Fight Night Card). Another potential location could be Hawaii—a place devoid of any UFC events till date—where Max Holloway resides.

“Do you think all 550 of my employees don’t want to go to Hawaii and do a fight? Believe me, we do. I want to go to Hawaii. Hawaiians have been good to this sport for a very long time, but they don’t have the infrastructure for a fight over there,” White said in April after the UFC 300.

Having said that, this is not the first time Dana White expressed his disinterest in the sphere…

UFC Sphere might truly be “one-and-done”

A massive $21 million has been spent by the promotion to make UFC Sphere a possibility. Th͏e promotion annou͏nc͏ed a compl͏ete s͏ell-ou͏t, ͏with ͏all 16,024 tickets snapp͏ed͏ ͏u͏p, mark͏ing a full h͏ouse for th͏e event. ͏Additio͏na͏lly, the organization reported recor͏d-͏brea͏k͏͏͏ing merc͏h͏andise ͏sales,͏ t͏he hi͏ghest ͏in͏ its ͏hi͏story but despite these records, Dana White might not return to the Sphere once again.

Why? Well, according to the UFC CEO, the promotion has a contract with MGM and they can’t breach it, “No, I’m under contract with MGM. I told you guys leading up to this, the way that this whole thing played out, tonight was meant to happen. It happened, we did it, we killed it … I have literally been getting blown up by everybody about this event. The other thing we did was that it translated well onto television, too. People felt like it was a different experience than they get on a normal Saturday night for a UFC event.”

UFC has for sure set the bar high for the other combat sports promotions to follow. Regardless, what’s your take on Dana White’s statement? State your thoughts in the comments below.