The UFC’s big White House card in June will undoubtedly be the biggest event the promotion has ever held in its 30+ years. It will also be the most expensive, and a lot of that comes down to what it will take logistically to hold an event on the South Lawn with 5,000 of the world’s top VIPs.
UFC CEO Dana White touched on some of the issues facing his production crew in a new interview with TNT Sports.
“There’s a laundry list of challenges,” White said. “First of all, the South Lawn slopes [down] like
this. Let’s start there. There’s only a certain amount of people you can get in. Secret Service, I’ve been to the White House a million times, and I get a lot of leeway at the White House. Everybody knows I’m not there to hurt anybody. So when we bring in 4,500 people that night, plus all the production staff and everybody that has to be a part of the event, this is gonna be [difficult].”
“There’s two things,” he continued. “What the Sphere cost is like chump change that you throw on your ashtray compared to what this is gonna cost. That’s number one. And number two: logistically pulling this off is insane.”
That’s wild to hear considering UFC 306 at the Las Vegas Sphere was the most expensive UFC event in the history of the sport, costing over $20 million to hold (compared to $2 million for an average arena show). White has previously called the budget ‘ugly,’ and it seems like it’s not getting any cheaper as the event approaches.
“Our normal lighting rig, anywhere we go in the world, [we use] the normal lighting rig,” White said. “I want nothing to do with that. I don’t wanna see it. We have screens. I don’t wanna see screens. The only thing I wanna see is the White House. And then when the fight goes the other way: the Washington Monument. That’s it. Those are the only two things I wanna see. I don’t wanna see a screen, a lighting grid, any of that stuff. So we had to build a special [rig], which is still being built.”
“Craig Borsari, my head of production, he has these renderings,” he continued. “This is how detailed we are on this stuff. He has a rendering of the actual trees that are on the South Lawn. Everything is is laid out. We’ll know where the sun is. When the video plays, it’ll show us where the sun is every thirty minutes. The list goes on and on. The team that we have, leading up to the White House, we’ll know the weather weeks in advance.”
Compared to all the logistical problems and costs, putting together a big fight card seems like a much smaller job. The UFC has done that over 325 times. Dealing with all the unknowns of holding an event outside on the White House lawn with all the security concerns is the bigger issue, and for once when White says it’s going to be ‘insane’ we don’t doubt him.
