Dana White has never been so invested in the venue of a fight card as he is in the Sphere for UFC 306.
It all started when White attended a U2 concert with Tom Brady at the Sphere in October 2023. The UFC CEO immediately started obsessing over the idea of hosting a sporting event at the venue — which ultimately led to UFC 306 being held at the venue on Saturday.
Sean O’Malley, who is one of the biggest active stars on the roster, puts his bantamweight title on the line against Merab Dvalishvili in the main event. Meanwhile, women’s flyweight champ Alexa Grasso defends her strap against Valentina Shevchenko in the co-main event of the card, which is also a tribute to the Mexican Independence Day. However, White emphasizes that the venue is the real star of the show at UFC 306. White is so impressed by the Sphere that he is even returning there for an Eagles concert on Sept. 27.
According to White, UFC 306 will feature a movie playing throughout with the fights as chapters of the film. However, what White isn’t sure about is whether his ambitious project can be executed to perfection. And he won’t have a chance to correct any potential wrongs in the future ,as it’s been already confirmed that the Sphere venture will be one-time thing.
UFC 306: O’Malley vs. Dvalishvili Saturday at 10 ET on ESPN+. Order Now!
“What I don’t know is if this works… All I know is that I was at the Sphere that night watching U2 and I was blown away by the experience,” White recently told Grind City Media. “What I said too is that the Sphere is the star of the show… I’m going to the Eagles [concert], as soon as our event’s done, I’ll be at the Eagles Sept. 27… And you get to sit back and listen to U2, all the greatest songs and you’re watching the screen and every once in a while you’ll peek over and you look at U2.
“So, I said it’ll be fascinating to pull off a sporting event here. Where we’re basically doing movies, there’ll be a movie that night. And in between movies, we call them chapters of the movie, there’ll be fights. And you’ll see our thought process and how we laid it out and how we figured this would work that. But at the end of the night, we’ll know whether it does or it doesn’t.”
While it’ll be a whole different experience for those in attendance at UFC 306, White also wants the fans watching from home to feel some of it. To cater to the needs of both groups, White has hired renowned live event director Glenn Weiss, who has 14 Emmys to his name.
“So every Saturday night we put on an in-house live event and a television event that goes out to the world,” White said. “Two different types of shows, with two different groups of people running each one. That night we’ll have two more trucks. So you’ll have the greatest director in Hollywood right now that does all the award shows, [his] name is Glenn Weiss. He’ll be shooting both of those live in trying to make the people at home feel the experience at the Sphere. So all this stuff has to come together and be seamless on Sept. 14.”
