The UFC’s Freedom 250 event has officially wrapped. Following the event heralded as a major success, UFC CEO Dana White squashed the idea of the event ever happening again.
What We Know: UFC spent an estimated $60 million on the event held on the South Lawn of The White House. Industry experts sayd the promotion is expects to lose about $30 million on the event. Early estimates of nearly 200,000 fans packed the Ellipse over the three-day event weekend. Merchandise sales doubled the previous UFC record. Meanwhile, all seven fights ended in a knockout or TKO — a UFC first.
What They Said: Dana White, UFC CEO: “I can’t afford it. There’s no fu**ing way we can do this again. I’ll never do the Sphere again, and we’ll never do this again.”
What Remains Unclear: The official totals for the event have are unknown. From merchandise sales to revenue generated from the event. Also estimated costs for the event with the military personnel used to stage the event are also unknown. Paramount hasn’t released specific viewership numbers yet. Meanwhile, White mentioned talks between himself and Trump about staging military-themed UFC events remain in early stages.
What It Means: Despite being a financial loss for the UFC, Freedom 250 met every expectation for the event. Positive and negative. The broadcast presentation was aimed to tell the story of America and the fighters involved. Despite a one-hour weather delay, the social media engagement surrounding the event remained high. In the coming days, official figures will be released to see if the event drew a large number of subscribers to the Paramount+ platform. If White and the UFC is willing to eat an expected $30 million loss for this event, it will be interesting to see how willing UFC would be open to more events on military bases around the world.
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John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
