'I love being first': After Sphere, where will Dana White take UFC next?

The UFC is embarking on its most ambitious venture yet when UFC 306 takes place at Sphere in Las Vegas on Saturday. The $2.3 billion venue will be the setting for what UFC CEO Dana White has promised will be the “greatest sporting event of all time.”

The event, which is being branded as Riyadh Season Noche UFC, is on track to be by far the biggest production in the history of the MMA promotion. White’s claim appears to have credibility, between the haptic seats that vibrate with every strike and slam, which will allow fans in attendance to “feel the action,” a massive 160,000-square-foot interior display plane, what has been described as “the world’s most advanced audio system” by U2 guitarist Edge and the six-chapter film “For Mexico, For All Time” that will play between fights.

With a production budget that started at $8 million, it has exceeded $20 million, according to White. UFC 306 will be a “one-and-done” event, White said, as he pushes forward with an opportunity to do unprecedented productions that other sports leagues dream of.

“I love being first,” White said during a recent Instagram Live. “I love doing things that people believe can’t be done.”

White’s ambitions won’t end with Noche UFC, and the appetite for his MMA organization to expand its global reach and continue touching untapped markets will grow.

ESPN spoke with fighters, coaches and agents to find out where the promotion could take its events in 2025 and beyond. Plus, what are the challenges and opportunities for breaking new ground in new countries and the plans for UFC Apex and Riyadh Season?

---

Where will the UFC go after Sphere?

White’s ambitions were on full display during the COVID-19 pandemic. White was bullish in ensuring his promotion continued to put on events when the rest of the sporting world had ground to a halt. He went to great lengths during the pandemic, holding events behind closed doors — without fans — on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where fighters, staff and media were quarantined inside a six-square-mile bubble. In the United States, UFC Apex in Las Vegas had a bubble of its own.

In the wake of the pandemic, UFC Apex — a live events and production center, with a seating capacity of around 1,000 — has remained the primary location for Fight Night cards. Since opening in 2019, Apex has hosted 97 Fight Night cards, 55 “Dana White’s Contender Series” episodes, seven pay-per-views, seven Power Slap events, four seasons of “The Ultimate Fighter” and one WWE event.

Currently, the UFC plans to pick up where it left off before 2020 and continue growing internationally by bringing events to live audiences in new markets. However, the UFC isn’t done hosting events at Apex, as the promotion is investing $20 million into expansion to make the venue “bigger and better,” according to White, by adding more seats, bathrooms and hospitality space. The facility will close its doors during renovations in late 2024, with the prospect of reopening in the first half of 2025. While there is excitement among fans surrounding the UFC getting on the road even more, there is also hesitation regarding how it will affect the fighters.

“I’d love to get out of the Apex, but at the same time, I like being busy,” strawweight Angela Hill told ESPN. She has fought at Apex seven times since 2020 and has a complicated relationship with the venue. She called fighting in front of a small crowd “awkward” and didn’t enjoy the inability to have fans of hers attend. Fighters at the Apex are allotted four tickets for family members or friends. The caveat is that they are only allowed to attend that individual’s fight. Pricing for a VIP ticket to Apex fight cards start at $1,595 per person, which limits the average fight fan from attending.

“If it’s a choice between fighting at the Apex and not fighting, I’d rather fight,” Hill said. “If the UFC can keep that same strength of schedule while leaving the Apex, I’m totally for it. But if that means that fighters aren’t going to be able to fight as often, then I’d be a little sad about that because there’s so many people on the roster right now and there’s a lot of competition out there for spots on a card now.”

While the future of Apex is being sorted, White has set his sights on bringing events to new countries and regions.

“We’re open to traveling around to many different places now, more open than I was a couple of years ago,” White said after the first episode of Season 8 of “Dana White’s Contender Series” in August.

While the rest of 2024 will see the UFC head to Paris, Abu Dhabi, Edmonton and Macau, none of these locations are groundbreaking. But 2025 could be the year when the MMA promotion pushes the boundaries of where it can go and what it will do once it gets there.

The UFC extended its partnership with Saudi Arabia in May. According to Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, he “will try to make Riyadh one of the biggest cities around the world in MMA.”

Following the UFC on ABC show hosted in Riyadh earlier this year, there are plans for a second Saudi Arabia event on Feb. 1, 2025, that’s being advertised as a Fight Night card.

“First of all, I thank Dana [White], I am shocked,” Alalshikh said on the UFC on ABC broadcast. “I know the UFC has a lot of fans. But you see, this is changing my mind now. 12,000 [fans] till 1 a.m. Now I am asking Dana, for the next card we want 30,000 [fans]. We want women too.”

---

Will the UFC finally take the leap to a stadium show?

As the promotion has continued to experience significant growth over the past few years, one of the biggest questions has been if and when the UFC will hold a stadium event.

From Conor McGregor‘s decade-long ambitions of headlining at Dublin’s Croke Park to featherweight champion Ilia Topuria‘s idea of defending his title at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid, talk of the UFC holding an event in a stadium that holds north of 80,000 fans has long been a hot topic.

“The fighting Irish are the best fight fans in the world,” welterweight contender Ian Machado Garry told ESPN. “It’s in our blood. The support I get at home is second to none. The energy of the Irish is something truly special. Of course, Ireland is overdue [for] an event on home soil and I’m the man to bring it back.”

Machado Garry says he’s been in constant conversation with the UFC about bringing an event to his country but recognizes the challenges as well.

“It would have to be Croke Park, and it would have to be very late at night,” he said. “The risk of rain in Ireland with no roof is present, and I hear the Croke Park neighbors aren’t too keen on late-night crowds. There’s a lot to negotiate there.”

While Machado Garry holds out hope for an event at Croke Park’s 82,300-capacity stadium, Topuria has been confident that he could be the man to help the UFC break attendance records.

“I would fight in front of 100,000 people,” the champion told The Athletic in an interview earlier this year. “I always like to set big goals for myself, and the truth is that, apart from bringing the UFC to Spain, it would be the biggest-selling event in the history of the UFC.”

Fighters are expected to be ambitious, with almost impractical expectations on how an event they would headline can deliver record-breaking numbers. If anyone could deliver on those expectations, it would be former two-division champion McGregor. But even the biggest star in the sport has been unable to get the UFC to host an event in a massive stadium in Ireland.

Dominance MMA Management president Ali Abdelaziz, a former executive vice president and matchmaker of World Series of Fighting, believes the reason why a stadium show has yet to happen boils down to one big factor.

“It has to be the right fight,” Abdelaziz told ESPN. “The only fight I could have seen taking place in a soccer stadium would have been a rematch between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor. I don’t think there is a big enough fight with anyone to fill a stadium of that magnitude.”

McGregor and Nurmagomedov met in a highly anticipated fight in 2018 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that set the record for the highest mixed martial arts attendance (20,034) and live gate ($17.2 million) in Nevada, as well as the record for the biggest-selling MMA pay-per-view event, with 2.4 million buys in the United States. McGregor’s popularity was off the charts and the fight with Nurmagomedov had massive crossover appeal.

Unfortunately, Abdelaziz doesn’t see any potential matchup strong enough to draw enough fans to fill a stadium, including the dream fight that never materialized between Jon Jones and Francis Ngannou.

“There aren’t very many fights that everyone is saying ‘Oh my God, I have to see that,'” he said. “And that’s what it would take to bring out both hardcore and casual MMA fans.”

Abdelaziz also points to something few have considered when discussing the UFC venturing to a stadium: the fan experience.

“Dana is so obsessed with the fan experience,” Abdelaziz said. “I think watching the fight in a stadium will not have the same feel as an arena.”

Many boxing matches have been held in football or soccer stadiums. In 2021, Canelo Alvarez faced Billy Joe Saunders at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, in front of over 73,000 fans. In 2022, Tyson Fury fought Dillian Whyte at Wembley Stadium in London in front of a British post-war record crowd of 94,000 fans. On Sep. 21, Anthony Joshua will face Daniel Dubois at Wembley, in a fight that could surpass the attendance record set by Fury-Whyte.

However, for White, having more fans at the fights is not ideal if he cannot provide them with the best viewing experience possible.

“[A stadium show] doesn’t interest me,” White said at Tuesday’s Contender Series postfight news conference. “What interests me is putting on the best live event. People always talk about how fast the sport has grown, and the live event experience is part of that reason. I don’t need to do a stadium.”

---

Taking the UFC to new frontiers

Although no venue will offer the fan experience Sphere presents, there are locations the promotion could travel to that are starved for a UFC event.

One untapped U.S. market is Hawaii, where current BMF champion and former featherweight king Max Holloway resides. The island state has been a haven for high-level MMA fighters, including former two-division champion and UFC Hall of Famer BJ Penn. Unfortunately, Hawaii has yet to have a UFC event.

“Do you think all 550 of my employees don’t want to go to Hawaii and do a fight? Believe me, we do,” White said in April after Holloway’s stunning last-second knockout of Justin Gaethje at UFC 300. “I want to go to Hawaii. Hawaiians have been good to this sport for a very long time, but they don’t have the infrastructure for a fight over there.”

Rival promotion Bellator has held eight MMA events in Hawaii from 2018 to 2023, with cards held at Neal S. Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu. While the atmosphere for those events was tremendous, the arena’s website says seating capacity can only reach between 7,700 and 8,800.

Holloway’s manager, Tim Simpson, believes that the UFC will eventually head to Hawaii and hopes that his fighter can finally compete at home.

“There has been a lot of government back and forth related to money as well as finding the correct venue,” Simpson said of the hurdles. “Unless you are in that room, or a part of those calls, you can’t say for sure why it breaks down each time, but I believe the intent is absolutely there and they will eventually find a way.”

What does appear tangible is the UFC finally making the trek to Africa within the next two years.

White has long said bringing a fight card to Africa is a priority. There was a time when Africa appeared to be ripe for an event with the UFC boasting three African champions: Nigerians Israel Adesanya and Kamaru Usman, along with Cameroonian Francis Ngannou. White teased in 2022 that the promotion was looking into venues and cities to hold an event, but nothing came to fruition. All three African fighters have since lost their titles, but a new one has surfaced as the king of the 185-pound division: South Africa’s Dricus Du Plessis. With a new champion, a renewed interest in bringing the promotion to Africa is certainly in line.

“I believe that in 2025 the UFC will finally make it to Africa, and what I am hearing is that they are working on a deal for Africa,” Abdelaziz said.

As it stands, the largest indoor venues in South Africa are SunBet Arena in Pretoria and ICC Durban in Durban, both of which top out at a capacity of 10,000. Other options on the continent include Salle Omnisport de Rades (17,000) in Tunisia and Dakar Arena (15,000) in Senegal. Plus, two venues are currently under construction, with Kinshasa Arena (20,000) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo scheduled to open in 2026 and Lagos Arena (12,000) in Nigeria targeting a late 2025 completion date.

Another tangible option is the soon-to-open Arena Guadalajara in Guadalajara, Mexico. It will be Mexico’s second-largest arena, with a projected capacity of 20,000. While Mexico has hosted seven UFC events, current women’s flyweight champion Alexa Grasso was born and raised in Guadalajara and would love nothing more than to headline an event at home.

“One of my biggest goals is to fight in my home city and I would love to be the first to fight there,” Grasso told ESPN. The idea of the UFC staging the first major combat sports event at Arena Guadalajara is something that would likely appeal to White.

Since the promotion’s inception 31 years ago, the UFC has continued to break ground in new regions in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. While there may never be another event like Noche UFC, it may just be the beginning for the UFC’s aspirations to reach more geographical milestones in its quest to continue growing its dominance as the biggest MMA promotion in the world.