The UFC is coming to the White House this June to hold a special event on the South Lawn.
President Donald Trump has been pushing for a UFC event on the White House grounds since last summer. Well, he got his wish. The UFC will host a live event on June 14 as part of the 250th anniversary of American Independence.
During a quarterly financial call this Wednesday, TKO president Mark revealed the UFC event at the White House will cost $60 million.
"By the time we get done, all is said and done with the event, what we play the fighters and the fan fest we're gonna have, that could move north. It's definitely not moving south – it could move north," Shapiro said, via MMA Junkie. "Bottom line is, it's still a moving target. We are working to determine, on a parallel track, a package of inventory, in and around the weekend of events, that we can monetize primarily with corporate partners – B2B players, which will offset half of the spend. Even if that $60(M) goes up, or rides up on us, we believe we can offset half of the spend. Today, we see it as $60(M) offsetting $30(M)."
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Will this be profitable for UFC?
According to Shapiro, the UFC will not profit off this event at the White House.
"We have a lot of current and prospective partners that would like to be involved, and are inquiring about inventory, as part of their greater partnership deals they either already have, or are negotiating with us for the future," he added. "But I want to be clear about something: we will not profit from the White House event independently."
UFC president Dana White, meanwhile, assured people that American taxpayer dollars will not fund this event in the nation's capital.
“No, we’re eating the whole thing,” White told Sports Business Journal. “So yeah, it’s going to be a historic one-of-one fight, and just like I talked about with the Sphere, we’re going to make the Sphere look like f—ing ash tray money.”
The card for this one-of-a-kind UFC event at the White House hasn't been announced yet.