The UFC is seeking to get on the highway extra typically in 2025.
For the previous a number of years, a significant speaking level amongst MMA followers has been the rise of the UFC APEX. In-built 2019, the APEX grew to become one of many UFC’s major occasion venues throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as promotion continued to placed on exhibits throughout the lockdown. Nonetheless even after the lockdowns ended, the APEX stays a fixture of the UFC rotation to the detest of some followers. However that could be altering quickly.
This previous Saturday, UFC Edmonton passed off and per the promotion it broke the file for highest-grossing UFC Battle Night time occasion in North American historical past. This comes on the heels of comparable performances when the promotion visited different places like Denver and Louisville earlier this yr, and talking with reporters after the occasion, UFC Vice President David Shaw advised reporters that this continued success will result in some modifications for a way typically the UFC goes on the highway in 2025.
“Yeah, there might be [more events on the road],” Shaw stated. “There might be an elevated variety of occasions exterior of the APEX relative to this yr as we get into the 2025 schedule.”
This weekend marks the UFC’s one hundredth occasion within the APEX and would be the promotion’s seventeenth journey there this yr. The promotion additionally used the APEX 17 occasions in 2023, down from the 21 occasions they held occasions there in 2022.
However whereas Shaw envisions a world the place the UFC depends much less closely on the APEX, he additionally made it clear that issues is not going to return to the pre-COVID period the place each present was someplace totally different.
“It’s robust for us to anticipate what two or three years down the highway seems to be like, nevertheless it makes loads of sense for lots of causes,” Shaw defined. “There’s loads of fighters in Vegas, it’s straightforward for us operationally, it’s easy from a budgetary perspective. The rigor and the stress and the way laborious it may be to be on the highway… It’s robust.
“So I feel having residence video games and being within the APEX the place we will simply flip off the lights and lock the door, it makes loads of sense for us. So will we ever get again to pre-COVID or no APEX? I don’t assume so. However I feel we’re going to seek out the fitting steadiness for us.”
And based on Shaw, extra highway exhibits doesn’t simply imply extra alternative for American followers to attend occasions. With the UFC’s media rights deal ending subsequent yr, Shaw says that extra worldwide journeys is a part of the promotion’s longterm planning as nicely.
“Are there extra plans? Sure. We’re going to be again within the U.Ok. subsequent yr,” Shaw stated “… Then as we get via subsequent yr which is kind of the final yr of our present media deal within the U.S. and we begin to plan out what we wish to do in 2026 and past when it comes to the variety of worldwide occasions we will have, the intention is to have the ability to return to Europe extra typically.”
