Tickets for UFC 110 – to be held in Sydney, Australia – sold out on the first day of general public sales according to the ticket website.
MMAJunkie has more:
After UFC Fight Club members and UFC.com newsletter subscribers snatched up a reported 10,000 tickets for UFC 110 during a four-day pre-sale, the Australian public quickly followed suit.
Despite the lack of even one officially announced bout, UFC 110 sold out on the first day tickets were available to the general public.
UFC 110 takes place Sunday, Feb. 21 at Acer Arena in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. With the time difference, the show will air on pay-per-view in the U.S. live on Saturday, Feb. 20.
Formerly known as the Sydney Superdome, Acer Arena is the largest indoor venue in Australia. Situated in Olympic Park, Acer Arena officially opened in 1999 and was one of the major venues of the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
UFC president Dana White had planned on traveling to Australia to promote the event, but on Thursday he told a small group of reporters that he had canceled his plans after the encouraging pre-sale numbers.
While official word of the sell-out has yet to come from the UFC, a quick review of UFC 110’s listing on Ticketek.com indicates an “Allocation Exhausted” alert for the event.
Tickets for the show were priced between AU$50 and AU$450.
Payout Perspective:
The ticket sales are obviously a great sign for the UFC and MMA in Australia. The sport has faced a great deal of criticism from certain press pockets, but this level of fan support helps to to reinforce the decision that was made to hold an event in the country.
Yet the biggest upside to holding an event in Sydney is still unquestionably the ability to avoid using tape delay in the United States PPV market. The UFC may lose out on some of the American media coverage, but the UFC won’t have afternoon spoilers eating a great deal of its buyrate (as is the case for events held in the UK).
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Just to offer some additional perspective on the ticket sales: it should be noted that the ticket prices for the event are relatively low compared to that of the typical US event. Ticket pricing can be tricky – and we’ve seen this year that the UFC has gotten it wrong sometimes – but in the case of a new market it’s probably best to leave a little bit of money on the table and fill the venue. Then in a year or two, when the company returns, it will have a better feel for the market and likely be able to maximize their profit potential.
first time in Australia, to be expected, also Australia is a huge, and i mean huge SPORT Country. Good sign for the UFC global expansion, although the profitability is yet to be determined from these ventures.