This past Saturday, the UFC made the trip to St. Louis for a show inside the Enterprise Center. It was a refreshing experience for fans, as Fight Night cards have typically been held inside the UFC Apex. as of late Almost 16,000 fans packed the arena and the announced gate was $2.47 million.
The atmosphere and success of the event is what Dana wants more of going forward with non-PPV cards.
Dana White Plans to Move Away From UFC Apex With Fight Night Cards
Chatting with media members following UFC St. Louis, Dana White admitted that the UFC is simply better for the sport of MMA with packed arenas (via MMAJunkie).
“Even if you were watching on ESPN, I’m sure you guys were getting texts too, like, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s like a pay-per-view there right now,’” White told reporters at his post-fight news conference. “And when you think about how we built this business, it was taking it out of the big markets.
“When we first got into the fight business, everybody just went to Vegas, Atlantic City, sometimes New York, sometimes L.A. Those were the only places that really had fights unless you had a local kid that would fight. We built this business to taking this thing to every city all over the world. As we start to get our sh*t together, I’ll call it, and start to move out and go out to these different cities like we used to, the whole sport just goes to another level.”
Dana then revealed that starting this year the company will be making more trips outside of the Apex for Fight Night events.
“I’ve been saying this for a long time,” White said. “We’ve got to get out of the Apex and start doing more events in all these different cities. We’re starting to do it. We’re getting it done this year.”
