‘I Don’t Know If This Works’
Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation
Will competing in a glowing LED ball affect the fighters at UFC 306? UFC CEO Dana White admits we won’t know if the Sphere works as a sports venue until after September 14th
Dana White has been promoting the hell of of UFC 306 aka Riyadh Season Noche UFC at the MSG Sphere, saying the September 14th show is going to be the most spectacular event the promotion has ever held. And how could it not be, considering the fights are being held inside a 16K resolution wraparound LED screen?
We’re starting to hear a little bit more about how the UFC Sphere show will look: there will be 90 second acts in between fights that form a larger film that tells the story of Mexico and Mexican combat sports. Then the fights will take place in different ‘worlds’ ... what that looks like, we don’t know. Will the UFC strip things down for the fights to avoid sensory overload? Will the fighters be getting blasted by disorienting lights and visuals as they try to compete?
In a new interview with Grind City Media, White admitted he wasn’t sure how the venue might affect the fights themselves.
“We don’t know. We won’t know until late Saturday night,” he said. “You know, I won’t do outdoor arenas because of wind, bugs, rain, and lots of other things that can happen. But this is still a controlled environment where on September 14th, sports and entertainment are truly gonna come together at the same time. Does it work? Is it great? Is it awesome? Does it suck? We don’t know. We won’t know until it’s over, but we’re gonna try it.”
If things don’t work out, it won’t be for a lack of effort or preparedness.
“We’re gonna rehearse the s— out of this thing,” White said. “I’ll still know every detail. What I don’t know is if this works.”
“It will be fascinating to pull off a sporting event here where we’re basically doing movies. There will be a movie that night and in between movies, you know, we call them chapters of the movie, there will be fights. And you’ll see our thought process and how we laid it out and how we figured this would work that night. But at the end of the night, we’ll know whether it does [work] or it doesn’t.”
It’s been exciting watching White pull the UFC out of it’s regular groove (rut?) and do something so strange and different. Even if it falls short of expectations and production can’t quite gel the Sphere’s trippy capabilities with the singular focus needed for sports broadcasting, it sure beats just another event at the UFC Apex or T-Mobile Arena.
