Did the overabundance of APEX shows kill the “Sin City” market?
UFC CEO Dana White once told Demetrious Johnson, the greatest flyweight in the history of MMA, that combat sports fans don’t really care about 125-pound athletes, which is why “Mighty Mouse” and the rest of the division never got pay-per-view (PPV) points.
With that in mind, it probably comes as no surprise to learn that UFC 310, headlined by the flyweight title fight between reigning champion Alexandre Pantoja and 125-pound newcomer Kai Asakura, is struggling to sell tickets for the Dec. 7 fight card at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the final PPV of the promotion’s 2024 fight campaign.
That’s according to the number crunchers at Fight Opinion.
“An update on UFC 310 ticket sales for T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas: they’re really bad,” the tweet wrote. “Markdowns are already happening. $1,200 seats down to $1,000. $1,000 seats down to $750. Even with papering, this could get real ugly. The erosion of the Vegas market for UFC is a big story.”
No telling if the original headliner would have fared any better.
The UFC 310 lineup (see it here) also features the five-round co-main event between undefeated welterweight contenders Shavkat Rakhmonov and Ian Garry. Rakhmonov was originally expected to fight for the division title (until this happened) while Garry was previously attached to the UFC Tampa headliner against Joaquin Buckley.
UFC has a little over two weeks to move the remaining seats.