Following UFC St. Louis Success, Dana White Vows to 'Get Out of the Apex'

The UFC Apex has been a staple of the Las Vegas-based promotion’s calendar since the COVID-19 pandemic.

While those events were born out of necessity early on, the Apex shows haven’t gone anywhere even with pandemic restrictions being lifted in recent years. The atmosphere at the UFC’s home facility is lacking compared to cards in various cities, which was once again evident during UFC on ESPN 56 in St. Louis on Saturday night.

According to UFC CEO Dana White, the event gate of $2.47 million was a Fight Night record, surpassing the previous mark set for a card in Austin, Texas, this past December, and those in attendance at the Enterprise Center gave it a big-fight feel — particularly when hometown favorites such as Joaquin Buckley, Sean Woodson and Charles Johnson were in action.

“Even if you were watching on ESPN, I’m sure you guys were getting texts too. They’re like, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s like a pay-per-view there right now.’ And when you think about how we built this business, it was taking it out of the big markets,” White said at the post-fight press conference.

“When we first got into the fight business, everybody just went to Vegas, Atlantic City, sometimes New York, sometimes L.A. Those were the only places that really had fights unless you had a local kid that would fight. We built this business to taking this thing to every city all over the world. And as we start to get our s—t together, I will call it, and start to move out and go out to these different cities like we used to, the whole sport just goes to another level.”

In recent months, both fans and fighters have become more critical of the promotion’s insistence on holding a steady stream of events at the UFC Apex. During a recent financial call for TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of the UFC, TKO chief financial officer Andrew Schleimer seemed to indicate that Apex Fight Night cards will continue to be part of the regular rotation. The primary motivation appears to be that UFC Apex events are more cost effective than going on the road.

“I think what you’ve seen since we have worked our way out of COVID, we have held a significant amount of events outside UFC Apex, and those that we do hold on our campus in Las Vegas, those numbers have gone down meaningfully,” Schleimer said (transcription via MMAFighting.com ). “That being said, bringing events on the road is as much about growing our fan base as it is generating income. It’s also about ensuring that we maintain certain margins and profitability profile, and there’s a cost-benefit analysis for us that we view opportunity costs of doing events domestically, internationally, and holding them at Apex.

“What we do in any budget cycle, as I’m sure you can appreciate, is determining the right mix. Not just to generate top-line revenue, but to ensure profitability. Those Apex events do carry the lowest cost structure for us to hold them on our home turf in Las Vegas. I don’t think we’ve found the perfect mix yet, but rest assured that we’re looking at the numbers and working to do so.”

So far in 2024, the promotion has held 16 events, with eight at the UFC Apex and eight at various venues with large crowds. On Saturday night, White sounded as though he’d like to shift that split toward hitting the road on a more frequent basis.

“I’ve been saying this for a long time,” White said. “We’ve got to get out of the Apex and start doing more events in all these different cities. We’re starting to do it. We’re getting it done this year.”