Conor
McGregor returning at the White House was seemingly not
financially viable for the
UFC.
McGregor (22-6) was originally rallying for a spot on the
UFC White House card on June 14. However, “Notorious” is now
set to return against Max
Holloway (27-9) at UFC 329
on July 11 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. McGregor’s manager
Audie Attar recently explained why McGregor’s return during
International Fight Week made more sense for the UFC
financially.
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The UFC White House card will not have any tickets on sale for the
general public. According to Dana White, 4,300 people, mostly
members of the military, will be seated on the South Lawn.
Meanwhile, 85,000 tickets will be made available for free to the
public to watch the event at the nearby Ellipse Park. Attar notes
that the UFC is sacrificing a huge amount of gate revenue at the
White House event. With McGregor being arguably the biggest star in
the history of the sport, the UFC would lose out on a lot of gate
revenue if the Irishman returned at the White House.
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“The UFC is actually donating so much in terms of giving up gate
revenue,” Attar told MMAjunkie.com. “They are making it up in different
ways with the fan zone. Based on the new deal we were able to
negotiate… it just makes more sense economically for them to
utilize him during International Fight Week. T-Mobile Arena, it’s
familiar ground for us. We want to be good business partners, so
for us it didn’t matter.”
While there are no tickets on sale for the general public, there
are special packages that can be purchased by few elites. While UFC
didn’t confirm the amount, Ariel Helwani claims the packages dubbed
as “partner investments” roughly cost $1.5 million.