UFC Fight Night 40: crappy attendance of 6k in a 17k venue

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Rollermanskunk

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UFC FIGHT NIGHT 40 ATTENDANCE AND GATE
MMA Junkie reports the attendance and gate for Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 40 which was announced at the post fight press conference. The attendance was 6,143 for a live gate of $415,000.
The event took place at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio. The capacity at the venue ranges from 14,000 to 17,000 seats.
Ohio native Matt Brown was featured in the main event and put on a fantastic fight against Erick Silva.
Payout Perspective:
Not the best of turnouts for a Saturday night fight in a city that has not had the UFC since 2007. This, despite Matt Brown featured in the main event. This is the second UFC Fight Night this year in a U.S. city with a less than stellar gate. In January, the Duluth, Georgia event had a small attendance and gate although that event took place on a Wednesday.
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Source: MMA-payout
 
There was also a Cincinnati Reds game going on at the same time as well as quite a few festivals in the area. It didn't start filling up until after the Reds game has ended.
 
On a random note, the UFC should go to Amsterdam.

But yeah, not the best attendance, and it was the first time that the UFC went back to Ohio in 7 years, which makes it even worse in a way.

For UFC cards: Orlando > Cincinnati
 
Fahrenheit1221 said:
There was also a Cincinnati Reds game going on at the same time as well as quite a few festivals in the area. It didn't start filling up until after the Reds game has ended.
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This. Plus the economy in this area is hurting right now. People chose to stay at home and watch on TV. There is also a smoking ban in Ohio which has affected many live events. There is a very large MMA following in the tri-state area but Saturday just had too many factors that reflected only 6k people going.

The fans that did show up were great fans though. Into the fights, cheering ground transitions & I didn't hear a boo!
 
On the upside, Matt Brown would probably draw in more fans to go to an event in Ohio next time if he were to main event.
 
I'm betting lots of people didn't even know there was an event there. I went to the one in Duluth, Ga. When I was telling people I went I had a few responding on facebook upset because they didn't know something was happening. FWIW the arena did look pretty packed.
 
You can blame it on economy, Reds Games, Festivals, etc....fact is, you didn't have a large attendance because most casual fans didn't know who Silva or Brown was, and plus it was free on TV.

I went to UFC 77 in 2007, and the building that night was near capacity, at least 12-14K showed. But, this was probably because you had the home town hero, Rich Franklin, fighting the most dominant fighter in the organization at that time, Anderson Silva, for the title.

Plus, the UFC had just had one of it's most successful cards all-time, in UFC 68 at Columbus, just 7 months prior, so you probably got a lot of fans for the Cincinnati card, hoping to repeat the atmosphere/fights that they had previously seen in Columbus. Needless to say, UFC 77 was one of the worst cards overall that anyone had to sit through and watch, so I would think that hurt the gate for a free card, with lesser known fighters to the casual fan.
 
What I like is how people think the UFC gives a shit about these small shows that are on free tv or fight pass.
 
They were obviously fun fights, but a lack of real starpower affects stuff like this with so many cheaper alternative forms of entertainment—especially considering the fights are on free TV already.
 
Shame since it was propably the card of the year for now.
 
It looks like UFC Fight Nights are n't really popular this year:

UFC FN 40: 6143
UFC FN 39: 7963
UFC FN 38: 6828
UFC FN 37: 14604
UFC FN 36: 7511
UFC FN 35: 5216

Only Gus his event in London (UFC FN 37) did decent gate numbers. On a side note: some venues of this list are not that big like the US Bank Arena
 
Another thing, there was at least 5,000 - 7,500 seats blocked off before the event even started. Meaning the capacity was only about 10,000 people and it looked very full for the main event except for one side of the corners. I was there.
 
Rollermanskunk said:
It looks like UFC Fight Nights are n't really popular this year:

UFC FN 40: 6143
UFC FN 39: 7963
UFC FN 38: 6828
UFC FN 37: 14604
UFC FN 36: 7511
UFC FN 35: 5216
Click to expand...

Even worse, take a look at the arena chart for UFC 173 in two weeks at MGM Grand. Looks like there are literally about 3000 tickets sold. There are first row tickets available in many sections.
 
Augustus Caesar said:
On a random note, the UFC should go to Amsterdam.
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Should be a nice choice, but I think Glory will step first in Amsterdam.

About the topic, UFC Fight Nights generally don't draw a big attendance despite some of them did more than 10k, I remember an event in Brazil I think was the one with Glover vs. Bader that drew something like 3k lol (ERRATA CORRIGE: it drew 5k)
 
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