Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at the penultimate PPV before UFC 300, Miami’s UFC 299.
O’Malley beats Vera handily, calls out 145 champ
Sean O’Malley’s reach, power and precision were on display as he handily defeated an outclassed Marlon Vera in the main event. O’Malley easily retained the bantamweight crown and in his post-Octagon fight interview called out featherweight champion Ilia Topuria. But, O’Malley still has challengers in his division including Merab Dvalishvili. Also, Petr Yan looked good in his return and could be a viable challenger for the 135lb crown.
Poirier still has it
Dustin Poirier showed us all that he’s not a gatekeeper in the 155lb division. He knocked out up-and-coming challenger Benoit St. Denis. BSD looked much stronger to Poirier and the former interim champ looked to be in trouble. Notably, Poirier kept pulling guard for a guillotine which his corner instructed him not to do. Yet, he continued to try for the guillotine. After the fight, Poirier poked fun at himself.
— The Diamond (@DustinPoirier) March 10, 2024
You know it’s a good gate when Dana White lauds it prior to the event. It was the fourth highest gate in UFC history which is outstanding considering the headliners. Of course, the price of tickets is also a reason for the record. It was the largest gate in the venue’s history.
Every fight that ended in a stoppage earned a $50K bonus. In addition, O’Malley earned a bonus for his performance on Saturday.
Pre-fight Promotion
UFC Embedded was sponsored by the Amazon Prime movie starring Conor McGregor, the remake of RoadHouse.
Marlon “Chito” Vera did the GQ Sports YouTube series, “My Essentials”
Sean O’Malley was on ESPN’s show with Shannon and Stephen A. (I didn’t bother to look up the name of the show).
As is the norm, there were the assorted number of random “influencer” podcast shows featuring some of the fighters.
Gilbert Burns was at the Miami Heat game earlier in the week.
Sponsorships
It was announced pre-event that Bud Light was the presenting sponsor of UFC 299. The presenting sponsor position is a relatively new position for sponsors to be the ‘featured’ sponsor. At UFC 296, Skilled Trades Colleges was the presenting sponsor.
The UFC Octagon had a lot of its sponsor on display including Black Rifle Coffee Company, VeChain, easypost, Toyo Tires, Crypto.com, DraftKings, Budweiser, Prime, Stake, HSS, New Amsterdam Vodka, Origin, Rizz Pharma, Icon Meals, Bud Light, Monster/7-11, Monaco Cocktails and AmazonPrime film Roadhouse and of course, Monster Energy in the center.
I believe Rizz Pharma had branding on the screen that shields fighters if they need to take off clothes to get on the scale. Prime had the sign on the faux scale at the ceremonial weigh-ins.
Odds and ends
There was the odd social media post last month that Dustin Poirier couldn’t work out a deal with the UFC to fight BSD, but that was shortly corrected. It was still curious considering
Per UFC Embedded (ep 4), there were 40 Ecuadorian press to cover Vera which is a cool thing and shows the globalization of the sport.
Joanna Jerzejczyk became the latest inductee into the 2024 UFC Hall of Fame class.
The UFC renewed its partnership with Venum to continue to be the Official Apparel of the UFC through 2029.
Sean O’Malley was the first fighter to choose pink for fight kit tights for the champion.
The Suga Show is going ✨pink ✨@SugaSeanMMA will wear pink shorts in his first bantamweight title defense this weekend at #UFC299 pic.twitter.com/dLsLPTej5P
— UFC (@ufc) March 5, 2024
A nice touch that Dana White announced the new TUF coaches on International Women’s Day. TUF starts June 4th.
Happy International Women's Day!#TUF32 coaches will be @AlexaGrasso and @BulletValentina premiering June 4th on @ESPN! @UltimateFighter pic.twitter.com/JC4msNmWuY
— danawhite (@danawhite) March 8, 2024
Also as part of the week the Florida Athletic Commission voted to allow PowerSlap in the state. Looking like the “sport” is expanding.
Joe Burrow may have lost a lot of fans. Including Tee Higgins.
Conclusion
I am not sure if the enormous gate of over $4 million was due to Sean O’Malley or the fact that it was in Miami and a “thing to do.” There were a lot of “celebrities” at the event. This may be a case of being seen rather there to see the fights. Still, the telecast likely did better than the past two this year. I would think it draws about 400K PPV buys on ESPN.
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