The UFC announced that Alexander Gustafsson will face Anthony Johnson on January 24, 2015 in an arena in Gustafsson’s home country of Stockholm, Sweden for UFC on Fox 14. It will be the first network show of 2015 and first outside of the U.S..
As most recall, UFC 129 was the first stadium show from Toronto, Canada to great success. The promotion is leveraging Gustafsson’s popularity to fill the arena for this show as it anticipates 30,000 fans for the January event.
Via UFC press release:
The bout will take place in front of more than 30,000 fans at the Tele2 Arena in Stockholm, marking just the second major stadium event in UFChistory and the first in Europe. The previous stadium event was the record-breaking UFC® 129 held at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Canada, as more than 55,000 fans watched Georges St-Pierre defeat Jake Shields.
The last three events in Sweden had the following attendance figures:
UFC on Fuel TV 2 (April 2012) – 15, 428, $2.23M gate
UFC on Fuel TV 9 – (April 2013) – 14,506, $2.7M gate
UFC Fight Night 53 – (October 2014) – 10,026, $1.1M gate
Payout Perspective:
A lot is being put on Gustafsson to sell this show. As we’ve learned from UFC 180, this could backfire if he is forced out due to injury. It’s not a title defense and while Gus may be popular in Sweden, it’s hard to think that he could sell a 30,000 stadium. With Dan Henderson-Gegard Mousasi/Matt Brown-Tarec Saffiedine as the co-main events, it will bring name notoriety but it’s hard to think that this will draw Swedish fans.
it will sell out in a day without a doubt. Its a big deal when a country has 1 and only star and that star comes to fight in the home country.
The reason why boxing does well with the international stadium shows is because the boxers become draws organically. There is no plug-and-play manufacturing taking place here.