Dana White’s massive combat experiment at UFC 306 from inside The Sphere was not only a success for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), but the once-in-a-lifetime event helped fuel a record-setting month for Las Vegas sportsbooks.
This past September, sportsbooks across Nevada ended up winning a whopping $80.9 million (per ESPN). This is the most ever in a single month in the history of the state. That’s saying a lot considering Las Vegas is the sports betting capital of the world. Needless to say, the sportsbooks and casinos were happy to see the cash rolling in.
While a large majority of that money comes from the opening weeks of the NFL’s regular season there was about $10.4 million calculated under an “Other” category, which consists of soccer, boxing, MMA, auto racing, golf and tennis all lumped into one. Fortunately for bookmakers across the state, September featured a Canelo Alvarez boxing match and UFC 306’s legendary event from inside The Sphere.
According to Derek Stevens, the owner of Circa Sports, UFC 306 was a large contributor to the $10 million in winnings. What made things even more profitable for the sportsbooks is the fact that the pay-per-view (PPV) card featured an upset in the main event, which was Merab Dvalishvili outlasting Sean O’Malley to win the undisputed UFC bantamweight championship.
“The volume on that day was tremendous,” said Stevens. “That was the biggest weekend of the whole month.”
While UFC 306 was an overall success for the promotion it didn’t quite bring in the high dollar amount that White had expected. In fact, tickets weren’t selling as fast as they should have and were drastically slashed. This resulted in White reducing the gate for UFC 306 from $25-$27 million all the way down to $21 million (which still set the company record). Keep in mind, it cost UFC around $20 million to stage the event in the first place.