Welcome to another episode of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at UFC 300 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Pereira KOs Hill
Alex Pereira cemented himself as the king of the Light Heavyweight Division. The former Middleweight champ showed that the added weight has helped with his destructive KO power. Even with an inadvertent eye-poke from Hill, Pereira shooed away the ref and almost immediately landed an upper cut which was the beginning of the end for Hill.
Pereira may be heading for another showdown with Jiri Prochazka who stopped Aleksandar Rakic earlier in the night.
Zhang defeats Xia to retain title
Zhang Weili earned a victory over her country woman Yan Xiaonan to retain the UFC women’s strawweight title. Zhang earned the win via unanimous decision. Yan was game as she came back in the latter rounds to provide a scare but Zhang used her wrestling to sustain her momentum for the win. It was the second most title fight wins in strawweight history. Outside of Rose Namajunas, Zhang is 9-0 in the division.
Holloway proves he’s a BMF
Max Holloway will be a UFC Hall of Famer when he decides he’s done with the sport. His domination of boxing exchanges with Justin Gaethje including the last 10 seconds of the fight which ended with 0:01 to go.
— UFC (@ufc) April 14, 2024
Attendance, gate, and bonuses
According to the UFC, there were 20,067 in attendance which was a new record for T-Mobile Arena. It was the sixth consecutive sellout in 2024 and 11th straight since October 2023. The gate was $16.5 million making it the third highest-grossing UFC event ever.
In honor of UFC 300, Dana White announced that the company would hand out $300,000 bonuses. Max Holloway took two of those bonuses. Holloway won the BMF belt and earned Fight of the Night (along with Justin Gaethje) and a Performance Bonus.
The other Performance Bonus went to Jiri Prochazka who stopped Aleksandar Rakic. Dana White said that he would also take care of other fighters on the card who had bonus worthy performances.
Ratings
UFC aired its early prelims and regular prelims on ESPN. The Prelims drew 1.86 million viewers making it the most watched ever on ESPN. The Prelims were the most watched ever across all ESPN Platforms including ESPN+, Hulu SVOD, ESPN & ESPN Deportes combined. The early prelims drew 1.214 million viewers.
Sponsorships
The UFC signed up more sponsors this week including Hostage Tape and Curve. It also added Sheertex a couple weeks ago.
In the Octagon, Black Rifle Coffee Company (which also sponsored the Embedded episodes this time around), Bud Light and Budweiser, Manscaped (outside skirting), Prime, vechain, Dav.org, Crypto.com, New Amsterdam Vodka, easypost, Rizz Pharma, Stake.com, DraftKings, DudeWipes, Cuervo, Sheath.com (underwear), blockasset, Monster Energy/7-11, the upcoming movie Fall Guy, Turbotax, Toyo Tires and Monster Energy in the center.
vechain sponsored the main event Tale of the Tape.
Zhang Weili has a Monster Energy deal as she held the can up when she had her hand raised at the decision.
Odds and ends
Uncharacteristic of the UFC, it sent out a press release on Wednesday touting some impressive numbers including attendance and gate. It was the highest grossing in sponsorship sales, all sponsors inventory was sold out, it was the highest commercial (e.g., bars and restaurants) PPV sold in US, Canada and Australia. Prior to the event, it had told the Sports Business Journal that it was projected to sell 1 million PPV units on ESPN+.
The champions were able to come up with their own short designs.
The UFC also introduced new gloves that are to curtail eye pokes.
Mark Coleman came out to a deserved hero’s welcome at UFC 300.
The UFC announced another inductee into the Hall of Fame this summer, the Silva v. Sonnen 1 fight.
A fight we will never forget 👏
— UFC (@ufc) April 14, 2024
Silva vs Sonnen 1, welcome to the UFC HOF! #UFC300 pic.twitter.com/MaN0f0rqZk
Pacific Sun, a UFC licensee, sold new UFC 300 merchandise at different locations in Las Vegas.
During the UFC Early Prelims and Prelims there were some interesting commercials. First, a Toyo Tires commercial most have seen before featuring Dustin Poirier and Forrest Griffin. But the most interesting one I noticed was one for the Pacific Legal Foundation touting it sues the government. The nonprofit represents conservative and libertarian causes.
I think this was noteworthy because on television we usually see UFC events not fill until the main card and sometimes just for the main event. 9,000 fans had made it inside the arena before the 3:15pm PT first fight of the night.
Dana White mentioned that Conor McGregor will officially return to the UFC on June 29th against Michael Chandler. The fight will be contested at welterweight. This would be another monumental event and this time with McGregor at the top of the card.
All of this news, and Kayla Harrison made her debut with the promotion with some fanfare. She defeated Holly Holm and there’s potential for Amanda Nunes to come out of retirement for a fight with the former Olympian judoka.
Corporate Synergy
Big night for our friends @ufc. A blockbuster card for a milestone event, at an awesome arena… this is going to be one for the history books. #UFC300 @danawhite pic.twitter.com/1lhw0yxvNm
— Triple H (@TripleH) April 13, 2024
Conclusion
UFC 300 came through in every financial metric and blew it away. This is impressive considering there was no big name or heavy rivalry that sold the card. While Pereira came through with a KO win, he was not touted as the highlight champion. Thus, the UFC created a major event without the need for a superstar to drive it which we may see more and more of in the future. This is great for the company. But it does not bode well for the individual fighter(s) that try to stand out to receive better pay. Certainly, the company will see that and reward (i.e., Max) but the bargaining power leans toward the UFC.
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