The UFC White House event is one of the biggest sporting events ever to take place. The fights will take place on the White House lawn, and a host of top officials are set to be present for the show.
The event is invite only with some top celebrities and streamers set to be part of the grand festivities.
It is also part of the America 250 celebrations, so expectations are quite high for the show. The UFC also put up a decent card with top names such as Ilia Topuria, Alex Pereira and Justin Gaethje fighting on the card.
UFC President Dana White believes the Freedom 250 card could do some great numbers, and believed they would touch Super Bowl numbers.
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White told UFC on TNT:
“For UFC fans all over the world, this is a unique experience for everybody. We’re expecting Super Bowl-type numbers for this fight.”
The last Super Bowl featuring the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots had an average viewership of 125.6 million.
The release by the NFL added that the game was watched on several outlets including NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital and NFL+.
White also pointed that how much effort had been put into the production of the show, and expected to win several awards for the same:
“If we don’t win every production award for the White House fight, they should stop doing production awards because you’re full of s***, okay? You’re full of s***.”
Check out Dana White speaking about his UFC Freedom 250 expectations below:
UFC set to lose millions at Freedom 250
Mark Shapiro, the president and COO of TKO, the parent company of the UFC revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that they were spending $60 million on the event.
Despite having some of the biggest names on the show and even landing sponsorship deals with Ram Trucks, Crypto and Monster Energy, the TKO executive confirmed that the UFC would be losing a lot of money:
“I want to be clear about something: We will not profit from the White House event independently. We will not be making money on America’s 250th anniversary.”
The report added that the UFC stands to lose around $30 million from the event, but Shapiro was looking at the larger picture and also brought up the Super Bowl during the interview:
“This is about sampling, new fans, casual viewers, a spectacle on a stage that will ultimately expand our audience, our viewership and our success on Paramount+.
He added:
“We see this once-in-a-lifetime stage as a strategic investment to drive subscriber acquisition at Paramount+, massive audience sampling for the UFC overall, and Super Bowl-like earned media across the globe.”
Edited by Saiyed Adeem Karim