The UFC has gradually started doing more events on the road in recent times, including this past weekend’s show in St. Louis, and Dana White has now said that the plan is to ramp that up even more as the year goes on.
“I’ve been saying this for a long time,” White told reporters after UFC On ESPN 56. “We’ve got to get out of the Apex and start doing more events in all these different cities. We’re starting to do it. We’re getting it done this year.”
When the pandemic first hit White refused to just put the UFC shows on hiatus until things got back to normal like most other sports did and instead started doing events out of their own Apex facility in Las Vegas.
It proved to be so convenient and cost-effective for the company that once the world started opening up again for business they were less inclined to start traveling again.
However, as time goes on it’s becoming clear to the UFC brass that the big-time atmosphere that comes from doing events at large-scale venues, together with the opportunity to grow the sport by reaching more destinations, is important for the company’s continued growth and as such it’s increasingly becoming a priority to go back on the road more often.
“Even if you were watching on ESPN, I’m sure you guys were getting texts too, like, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s like a pay-per-view there right now,’” White told reporters at his post-fight news conference. “And when you think about how we built this business, it was taking it out of the big markets.
“When we first got into the fight business, everybody just went to Vegas, Atlantic City, sometimes New York, sometimes L.A. Those were the only places that really had fights unless you had a local kid that would fight. We built this business to taking this thing to every city all over the world.
As we start to get our sh*t together, I’ll call it, and start to move out and go out to these different cities like we used to, the whole sport just goes to another level.”
