Dana White has never been so invested in the venue of a fight card
as he is in the Sphere for UFC
306.
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It all started when White attended a U2 concert with Tom Brady at
the Sphere in October 2023. The UFC CEO immediately started
obsessing over the idea of hosting a sporting event at the venue —
which ultimately led to UFC 306 being held at the venue on
Saturday.
Sean O’Malley, who is one of the biggest active stars on the
roster, puts his bantamweight title on the line against Merab
Dvalishvili in the main event. Meanwhile, women’s flyweight
champ Alexa
Grasso defends her strap against Valentina
Shevchenko in the co-main event of the card, which is also a
tribute to the Mexican Independence Day. However, White emphasizes
that the venue is the real star of the show at UFC 306. White is so
impressed by the Sphere that he is even returning there for an
Eagles concert on Sept. 27.
According to White, UFC 306 will feature a movie playing throughout
with the fights as chapters of the film. However, what White isn’t
sure about is whether his ambitious project can be executed to
perfection. And he won’t have a chance to correct any potential
wrongs in the future ,as it’s been already confirmed that the
Sphere venture will be one-time thing.
O’Malley vs. Dvalishvili Saturday at 10 ET on ESPN+. Order
Now!
“What I don’t know is if this works… All I know is that I was at
the Sphere that night watching U2 and I was blown away by the
experience,” White recently told Grind City Media. “What I said too is that the Sphere
is the star of the show… I’m going to the Eagles [concert], as soon
as our event’s done, I’ll be at the Eagles Sept. 27… And you get to
sit back and listen to U2, all the greatest songs and you’re
watching the screen and every once in a while you’ll peek over and
you look at U2.
“So, I said it’ll be fascinating to pull off a sporting event here.
Where we’re basically doing movies, there’ll be a movie that night.
And in between movies, we call them chapters of the movie, there’ll
be fights. And you’ll see our thought process and how we laid it
out and how we figured this would work that. But at the end of the
night, we’ll know whether it does or it doesn’t.”
While it’ll be a whole different experience for those in attendance
at UFC 306, White also wants the fans watching from home to feel
some of it. To cater to the needs of both groups, White has hired
renowned live event director Glenn Weiss, who has 14 Emmys to his
name.
“So every Saturday night we put on an in-house live event and a
television event that goes out to the world,” White said. “Two
different types of shows, with two different groups of people
running each one. That night we’ll have two more trucks. So you’ll
have the greatest director in Hollywood right now that does all the
award shows, [his] name is Glenn Weiss. He’ll be shooting both of
those live in trying to make the people at home feel the experience
at the Sphere. So all this stuff has to come together and be
seamless on Sept. 14.”