Sunday, August 30, 2009

A chink in the UFC armor

Saturday's UFC 102 in Portland, Ore., ended up drawing over 16,000 fans for a gate of $1.92 million gate but it didn't sellout and was unable to break the Rose Garden record, something the company has gotten used to when invading a market for the first time.

"I'm my own worst critic, and I got a lot of [expletive] critics, believe me," UFC president Dana White said. "I'm a little disappointed that we missed the mark on this thing. I think as great as we did, we could have done better."

The $1.92 gate, while impressive by most standards, was the smallest U.S.-based pay-per-view event since March's "UFC 96: Jackson vs. Jardine" event netted only $1.8 million.

"I'm pissed off that we're not the No. 1 gate in the history of this place," White said. "That bums me out because I think we could have done it had we dialed it in right. But we're going a million miles an hour, jumping on all these things. "I've got this thing priced, ticket-wise, for the same price I've got L.A. priced for. [Expletive] stupid. We messed up here. I'm a little bummed out about that."

UFC 101 officially drew 17,411 to the Wachovia Center for a Pennsylvania combat-sports record gate of $3.55 million.

No comments: