UFC 91 Struggling to sell tickets

Published on: 9th October, 2008

UFC 91   | read this item

UFC 91

When UFC 91 was announced it was pretty much a no brainer that it was gonna be a battle between Randy Couture’s return and the popularity of Brock Lesnar and that it would be one of the UFC’s highest grossing events in years. Dana White predicted the event would bring in an additional 250,000 new fans who would pay just to watch Brock Lesnar fight. Predictions also have varied between 1 to 1.5 pay per view buys, almost three times the average of UFC events at 450,000.

Dave Meltzer of F4Wonline is reporting that UFC 91 is actually struggling at the gate to sell tickets.

“The 11/15 Las Vegas show with Randy Couture vs. Brock Lesnar, which should have been a first weekend sellout, due to the combination of the high prices and economy is at 8,000 sold for $3 million, and also moving slowly since only the $500 and up seats are left. There are casinos who have purchased tickets that don’t figure into that number, which is the ticket outlet numbers. But it was scaled to break the all-time UFC gate record of $5.4 million and right now it looks like they are going to have to cut deals or paper to sellout the 14,000 plus seats at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.”

Many people have wondered if the economic crisis would slow down or hurt the UFC’s sales of pay per views and at the live gate, this may be a sign of how it will affect the sales until the market can become stable again. Another reason is with all the hype surrounding the event it may have also made the regular consumers believe that most of these tickets would sell out before they had a chance to buy them. Las Vegas is also playing host to UFC 92 two days after Christmas and UFC 94 on Super Bowl weekend in late January, so we will find out soon enough how it will affect their sales throughout the upcoming months.

 Narcisist is the Co-owner of UR Dirt and is the designer, editor and author. URDirt.com is a MMA blog that covers the UFC, WEC, StrikeForce, DREAM and several other Mixed Martial Art promotions. Read more from this author

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