MMA Junkie reports on the attendance, gate and bonuses for Saturday’s UFC 173 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas where T.J. Dillashaw defeated Renan Barao in a huge upset.
Announced at the post-fight press conference, the reported attendance for Saturday’s event was 11,036 for a gate of $1.7 million. A modest gate for Vegas standards, it still did better than UFC 170 which was at the Mandalay Bay Events Center and featured Ronda Rousey .
The bonuses saw the night’s big winner, awarded two bonuses:
Fight of the Night: Dillashaw-Renan Barao
Performance Bonuses: Dillashaw and Mitch Clarke
Clarke pulled off a slick D’Arce choke on Al Iaquinta on the Prelims show.
Payout Perspective:
It was a good night of fights despite the lack of buzz for the main event. T.J. Dillashaw put on the performance of his life as he dominated what many argued was the pound for pound best fighter in the UFC. As a result, he was the recipient of $100,000 in bonuses. On Saturday, ticket demand was sparse with tickets still available as of yesterday afternoon and it may have been reflected in the attendance and gate. There is nothing official on the gate until verified by Nevada later this week. As for the bonuses, Tony Ferguson, Robbie Lawler and Daniel Cormier were shut out for bonuses although each could have had a claim for a Performance Bonus especially Cormier who made a statement with his “rag dolling” of Dan Henderson and a pretty good promo post-fight.
MMA Payout will have more on Foamposites, Popeyes and “fishing” people in its Payout Perspective.
Less than 200,000 buys most likely?
Sampson smells like poop.
This comments section has gotten legitimately worse with this new MMA shill “D” egging on the boxing trolls. It is unfortunate as there is little room for worthwhile discussion anymore. It is embarrassing to be a MMA supporter at times.
The Chuck mascot is not only awesome. But I think the Ufc needs jump on this. They cant have a mascot like other sports or teams. But what better way to capitolize on stars you have made? I would have a half dozen if these guys working the croud. A Rampage one would be cool. A Brock, wandy Silva, etc. Anyone with a recognizable lok woukd look great. A grest way to extend a fighters value. Lots of times a fighters name valsue out lasts their career. Like a couture or chuck or Royce. Using their likeness as mascots would be cool as hell. I hope they adopt this and take it further. When I first saw it with the guys I watch the fights with. We were like WTF? Looked like a carton in real life. This is one of the greatest things to come into the sport in a long time imo.
Capacity for this venue is 16,800 without floor seats so this is a very poor gate with a lot of empty seats. Memorial day weekend can be hit or miss. UFC might want to consider smaller sized arenas for some of the lesser cards. PPV will a bit off too.
B.s. — yeah but first pay the fighters well hahaha
Fighters are paid plenty. If it wasn’t a good job people would t be lining up to get in the UFC. If the fighters were paid less than they are worth. Then another promotion could come in and make more money with those fighters and out big the UFC. But we both know those fighters under any other banner doesn’t draw any fans. Fighters need to step up and pull their weight and build their name. It’s not a good sign sponsors want a retired fighter before they want a current one. They need to earn their pay and stop piggybacking the UFC brand for fans.
Brock mascot would now be with wwe hahaha
I was wondering , without spending my whole day googling it, yea I have a life, what the number of tickets MGM holds back for its high rollers. How much money the UFC averages per ticket in their total gross of ticket sales of these “casino tickets”. I know a casino can hold up to a few thousand tickets. for an event. So in fact this is another comp number of tickets that arnt really bought by the mma consumer but rather given out to important guests of the MGM.
Chirp chirp