UFC 202 will go down as a success, there is no doubt about that.
But it may not do quite as well attendance-wise as the UFC might have hoped, as ticket prices for this weekend’s card have been slashed in the last 24 hours, according to a report from ESPN.
The report claims that certain upper tier seats in the new T-Mobile Arena are now available for just over half of what they were going for on Thursday, dropping from $365 to $215.
The most expensive (and therefore theoretically the best) seats for the card are located Octagon-side and they have been cut by $2,000 (from $9,995 to $7,995) in the space of one day while other premium seats were slashed from $2,950 to $1,850.
While the August 20 event is still projected to bring in over $7 million in gate revenue, it is unlikely to better UFC 194’s $10 million, which is the largest gate of any mixed martial arts event in Las Vegas.
The quality of the card has been questioned by some cynical fight fans and the fact that there is no title fights on the card may have had a detrimental effect on public interest.
Diaz storms out of #ufc202 presser, starts throwing bottles. McGregor returns fire. pic.twitter.com/J7D3hngMWC
— Darragh Murphy (@DarrMurphy) August 17, 2016
There will presumably be far fewer Irish fans in attendance as many had bought tickets for UFC 200, the event that McGregor vs. Diaz II was originally scheduled to headline, and could not cancel their hotels and flights when the rematch was eventually pulled from the card. And two trips to Las Vegas in the span of a month is understandably an expense that not many can afford.
McGregor’s early media silence throughout his fight camp won’t have helped either but the bottle-throwing antics at the pre-fight press conference will certainly have salvaged some hype.
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