MMA Junkie reports the attendance and gate for Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 40 which was announced at the post fight press conference. The attendance was 6,143 for a live gate of $415,000.
The event took place at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio. The capacity at the venue ranges from 14,000 to 17,000 seats.
Ohio native Matt Brown was featured in the main event and put on a fantastic fight against Erick Silva.
Payout Perspective:
Not the best of turnouts for a Saturday night fight in a city that has not had the UFC since 2007. This, despite Matt Brown featured in the main event. This is the second UFC Fight Night this year in a U.S. city with a less than stellar gate. In January, the Duluth, Georgia event had a small attendance and gate although that event took place on a Wednesday.
Not surprising numbers for a TV event. It should have been in a much smaller venue. I doubt this one even broke even. The UFC’s formula of holding events in 2nd and 3rd rate markets is a failure. There are maybe half a dozen cities that are even worth a crap for any real strong gates.
Cincinnati is actually the 32nd largest metro (CSA) area in the US with 2.2M people.
Getting 6k out of 2.2M people to show up is pretty bad.
And Duluth, GA is a suburb of Atlanta. Atlanta metro (CSA) is 11th largest with 6.1M people.
@N2 thats great, looks good on some census statistic. In the entertainment business and the fight game business it doesn’t mean jack shit! What matters is ass’s in seats. Obviously some nerd with a sheet of paper with a bunch of meaningless figure talked The UFC into investing an event in these kind of markets and it failed. Bigger population doesn’t translate into ticket sales. Promotion 101. A lot of these so called metro cities have failed pro teams in the NBA and the NFL. 6k is horrible if you look at 10,000 empty seats chirp chirp chirp.