Omaha to Get UFC Pay-per-view Event?
September 23, 2008
Catching up on some of the news that hit during our down time, this particular post on Fight Night from Omaha by Steve Cofield caught my eye:
UFC president Dana White was giddy about the support shown for the event telling the Omaha News-World the city got itself a future pay-per-view event.
It seemed like a statement that begged a follow-up question that never came. Asking the logical follow-up would yield the part being left out……that they probably earned a WEC PPV, not a UFC PPV show.
The event at the Omaha Civic Auditorium drew 9,103 and did an arena record gate of $700,000. Which is great for a mid-level show during the middle of the week for free TV, but for the UFC PPV shows you are looking at a $1.75 to $2 million gate at minimum to even start talking about hosting a PPV. They could play the larger venue in the Omaha area, the Qwest Center, but it is highly questionable if they could do sufficient numbers there. Portland just got aced out of hosting the Randy vs Brock showdown even though that show would have done in the $2 million range, which was no match for a $5 million+ payoff at the gate in Las Vegas. Omaha can’t compete at either level, which makes them hosting a UFC PPV nonsensical.
A better fit for Omaha would be a possible WEC PPV, a concept which Dana White recently discussed with Kevin Iole at Yahoo. Omaha and their $700k gate would compare favorably to other non-Vegas venues for the WEC such as Albuquerque and Sacaramento, who have recently hosted cards. If they can get the folks of Omaha to buy in to the WEC brand they probably won’t hit the $700k figure, they can do respectable and profitable numbers.
