- « UFC 81 Has Come and Gone…And The Drama Continues
- Canadian MMA Fans Set UFC Record; UFC Drama Continues »
While I believe it was expected that the demand for tickets to UFC 83 in Montreal would be huge, it is safe to say that I am pleasantly surprised by the incredible hype surrounding it.
Tickets sales have far surpassed what the UFC was expecting from Canadian MMA fans (over 15,000 in 24 hrs). I asked Dana White last Thursday during one of my recording sessions with him if he was sincerely ready for what the UFC is going to experience once these tickets are made available and when the event actually happens.
He said he was ready and to basically bring it on. Three days later, his eyebrows were raised and when I spoke to his assistant, even she was blown away by how many ticket requests she has received. Whether it was for blocks of 10, 50 and even 300 tickets, she stated she had never seen such an insane demand for a UFC event.
I have been promoting MMA for 10 years now, often assisting in putting on events with various promoters. I have worked for over five different events and I have never been hounded for tickets as I have for this upcoming UFC show. Dozens of emails, phone calls, Facebook and text messages…it has been non-stop for over a month now. This phenomena known as UFC 83 has been a reality check for me, not because of what it is and what it will be, but for what it represents.
The UFC is looking at this scenario closely. They realize that with this inagural event in Montreal, they are going to break not only attendance and live gate records, but there is a very good chance that the UFC 83 pay per view buy rates could be a potential threat to the existing UFC ppv buy record (775,000 held by UFC 61 - Ortiz vs Shamrock II).
What does all of this mean for the UFC? Money and Growth.
The UFC will experience a pleasant boom to their bottom line while successfully expanding their live event product into a new market. It also means that they will be back again…and again and again. It bodes well for cities like Edmonton, which is another Canadian MMA hot bed, with representatives who have been working with the UFC to bring a show to their city for over a year. I will not be surprised and sincerely hope Edmonton will be added to the UFC’s list of live event cities.
And if I may, and I will, please allow me to sound like a broken record again: just imagine if MMA was legal, sanctioned and regulated in Ontario, specifically in Toronto. This is no disrespect to any other city in our great country, but the reality is this: Toronto is the largest city in the country with the largest population, is the corporate capital of the Great White North and its local fighters and fans have been hungering for MMA longer than anyone else.
I can only imagine a UFC in Toronto…hopefully Ontario’s Athletic Commissioner, Ken Hayashi can be swayed by the event in Montreal. Hayashi has been invited (and supposedly accepted the invitation) by the UFC’s Marc Ratner to attend UFC 83 in Montreal. I hope Hayashi will get a true taste of WHAT CAN BE, SHOULD BE and hopefully WILL BE in Ontario.
If Hayashi plays his cards right, just one UFC event in Toronto can pay his annual salary, the salary of his staff, and keep the OAC afloat for years to come. Mr. Hayashi, if you are reading this, just ask the athletic commission in Columbus, Ohio to expand on what I’m talking about. They can explain it better than I can.
