UFC Viewing Parties in NYC

The UFC has unveiled its plans to hold several UFC 111 viewing parties in New York, including a massive event at Radio City Music Hall where fans will be treated to guest appearances from Chuck Liddell and Matt Serra.

Among the first of several planned events, UFC today officially announced it will stage a UFC 111 Viewing Party at the world famous Radio City Music Hall, presenting a closed-circuit screening of this historic fight card. Fight fans can watch all the action in High-Definition on Radio City Music Hall’s 70’ x 35’ screen, the largest screen to ever broadcast UFC® events.

Payout Perspective:

These viewing parties are quickly becoming a staple on the property side of the sports industry, because they’re an excellent way to cultivate and deepen the relationship between a team/league and the fans. The parties afford some level of interaction between the fans and the sports personalities, provide a game-like crowd experience and atmosphere, and usually throw enough contests and giveaways that fans leave with a really positive impression of the brand.

With New York being so close to Newark, these viewing parties are a no brainer; especially considering the UFC is fighting for regulation in the state of New York and it wants as much support and good press as possible.

I have no doubt these events will be hugely successful, which leads me to wonder if the UFC ought to consider hosting more of these official viewing parties, if not on a slightly smaller scale, in the future. The cost of arranging a venue – which would be more than willing to host an official party – and pay a few of the UFC’s local fighters to attend is quite minimal. Plus the venue, whether its the Hard Rock Cafe or Radio City Hall, would cover a great deal of the advertising on its own; although the UFC could supplement advertising by leveraging its own PR channels (especially Twitter and FB).

The UFC could absolutely build these into “must-attend” events for UFC fans.