The UFC will host the first live sporting event inside Las Vegas’ $2.3 billion Sphere this Saturday. UFC president Dana White began dreaming about the concept last fall after attending a U2 concert at the venue, but when he called his chief content officer to pitch the idea, Craig Borsari couldn’t help but scratch his head.
“I immediately was thinking, I don’t even know how this is really possible,” Borsari said.
When Borsari visited the venue, the biggest challenge stared him in the face. The UFC has almost always hung a massive lighting grid 32 feet above its octagon, often below a venue’s jumbotron. But the Sphere doesn’t have a jumbotron, and any hanging fixtures would significantly block the view of the dome’s 160,000 sq. ft LED screen.
So engineers spent months pioneering a solution that blasts light between the gaps of the existing LEDs. The immersive screen will be on all night, offering distinctive backdrops during the fights and airing custom-created, 90-second films between bouts.
Riyadh Season Noche UFC, then, will be the clearest proof yet that sports are fully entering the world of mixed reality. Screens are becoming a pivotal part of presentations—at new-age venues such as the Sphere, but also at your local ballpark, where information and entertainment are increasingly presented digitally.
This specific event is unlikely to be replicated anytime soon, White said. For one, the UFC otherwise has an exclusive deal with MGM to host Las Vegas events at T-Mobile Arena. Also, the budget for this upcoming event is roughly 10 times that of a typical pay-per-view fight night.
But White is hopeful that Saturday night’s action can be repurposed into a movie viewable to future Sphere visitors. The UFC has also invested in additional production capabilities to give TV viewers at home a taste of the unique perspective, embedding cameras in the auditorium’s upper levels. Though it remains to be seen just how much fans enjoy viewing screens on their at-home displays.
For now, the company is doing everything it can to keep those views a surprise from the public. “I will not put out one image of this event,” White said. But he will say the Mexican Independence Day-inspired card will be “the most incredible f—ing thing that anybody has ever seen in sports.”
Here’s what else the face of the UFC said about a futuristic sporting experiment.
The following conversation has been edited and condensed.
Sportico: You’ve talked about getting the inspiration for a UFC event at the Sphere while attending a U2 show there. What was the pitch or conversation like with Sphere Entertainment CEO James Dolan about getting a venue deal done?
Dana White: Yeah, so that night I was actually in Dolan’s box.
What happened was, Tom Brady had hit me up and said, “Hey, I’m coming to town for U2. Do you want to go with me?” and I said, “Yeah, I’ll go.” So we end up going, and we’re in Dolan’s box, and [Dolan shows] me around the place during the event.
I’m sitting there watching this thing, and I’m blown away by the Sphere. I called my head of production, Craig Borsari, and I said, I don’t know what you’re doing next weekend but cancel it. We’re going to do an event at the Sphere and I want you to bring the team down here.
Sportico: Obviously the budget was big to begin with and got bigger. What was the biggest cause of the growth of that budget?
White: The budget was $8 [million dollars], because we didn’t know what we didn’t know. Eight seemed like a good number. Well eight went to $20 [million], because we don’t cut corners. So who knew what the budget would be? [Borsari] thought he padded himself good making it $8 million, but it’s like building a house.
Sportico: Are you planning on showing any of what it looks like ahead of time?
White: Lenee [Breckenridge], my head of PR … never hears the word “no” from me, ever. She gets what she wants all the time. She’s been torturing me to put out images of the event. I won’t do it. I will not put out one image of this event.
You’ll find out Sept. 14 what it looks like, what it is and all the different movies. There are six different movies that will air that night, and not one image will come out before the event.
Sportico: Are those films going to be available afterwards, online anywhere?
White: If this goes the way I hope it goes, I’d love to repackage this thing and have it run all year at the Sphere, where people could come into town and go experience it.
Sportico: There’s been a lot of talk about bells and whistles for the event, including—I read—using haptic motors in the seats so they rumble in sync with the action. Is that happening?
White: We’re absolutely using it.
Sportico: Yeah, because I know Clippers owner Steve Ballmer had looked into putting something similar in at Intuit Dome but decided that people didn’t like getting shook. But you guys feel good about it?
White: [Ballmer’s] not wrong. This is what I’ve been talking about—this event is such a game-changer, this is where entertainment and sports truly come together.
I think people who are building arenas from here on out or redoing their arenas start looking at stuff like this.
Sportico: How do you think this event might change the way arenas are built?
White: For years, you’ve been sitting there at halftime watching the f—ing mascot bounce off a trampoline and dunk a ball. I mean, jugglers and s–t like that. When are you going to evolve?
The Super Bowl rolls in these unbelievable concerts. The NBA and all these other sports leagues—and the arenas—are going to start stepping up and changing what the halftime, and the rest of their entertainment other than just the game, looks like.
Sportico: How did you think about the TV experience vs. the in-person experience when you’re designing a wholly new setup like this?
White: Great question—every Saturday night we put on an in-house show and a show that beams out to the world on television. So, we’re doing both of those, but we’re also adding two more trucks, because we’re actually going to have a group that shoots both of those at the same time. We’re going to try to give the people at home the experience of being at the Sphere, which adds a whole ’nother element of, holy sh– this is difficult.
Sportico: On the tickets, there’s been a lot of conversation about the prices and the process. How satisfied are you with how that has gone?
White: Very satisfied. It’s no different than any of the other events we’ve done. You know, some are immediate sellouts but most we don’t sell out till the week of—or even the night of. This will be a sellout, and it’s the biggest gate in UFC history.
Sportico: How do you go about pricing something like this that’s so unique?
White: [This is] the first time we’ve ever done this [kind of event]. A lot of the things were challenging. I see that people have been critical of the ticket pricing, the ticket selling. They’re going to be critical of the event that night. I’m actually looking forward to the criticism. I’m looking forward to hearing what people thought of it and how we executed and did we pull it off.
This is what we do. We’re first. And, you know, when you are first and you take these kinds of risks, you’ve gotta sit back and expect criticism.
Sportico: Why are you so hungry to be first with each new piece of technology?
White: Because I like to challenge ourselves. I like to do things that haven’t been done…. I like to push the envelope.
Sportico: Are there other venues—or types of venues—that become possible for you going forward?
White: I think so. You mentioned it earlier—the new arena out in LA, we’re checking that out now, too. We will probably be first in there.
Monday morning, after the Sphere event, we’ll start planning what the next Noche event is going to be and where it’s going to be and how it will be different from this one. This is going to be a tentpole event for us.
Sportico: This is also the first flagship UFC event with a title sponsorship from Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Season. What is their exposure going to be like within the Sphere?
White: Big. He will be there that night—[Saudi Arabia General Entertainment Authority chairman] Sheik Turki Alalshikh. He’s excited about this too. He’s super passionate about fighting. He reached out to me. I wasn’t out looking for sponsors. He reached out to me and said he wanted to be a part of the Sphere. It’s awesome.
Sportico: What else should folks look out for?
White: The only other thing that I would add to this is: This thing is so authentic. We actually hired somebody who authenticates everything that we’re doing, from costumes to history to culture. Even all the octagon girls, we will not be using our octagon girls. These are all real girls from Mexico, first generation Mexicans that will all be involved. Even Carlos López Estrada, the film director, is first generation Mexican. I mean, this thing is super authentic.
