Last Saturday brought the UFC to the iconic Las Vegas Sphere with the headline fight between Sean O’Malley and Marab Dvalishvili. Attendance was reported to be 16,000 attendees; filtering for a visits exceeding a 1-hour dwell time, our data shows 14,000 visits/visitors for the day, with the difference likely due to international attendees, event staff, and other supporting personnel. As shown in the graphic below, attendees came from all over the United States, but Nevada was the dominant state at 25%, followed by California at 22%. By contrast, New York and New Jersey were collectively 7%.
The event was titled “Noche UFC" to celebrate Mexican Independence Day; that may have been to primarily win TV viewers, but the trade area for the event over-indexed to Latino (an index of 121 relative to national average of 100, representing 23% of the captured trade area) and Asian audience (an incredible index of 198 to the national average of 100%, or 11% of the captured trade area). Ticket sales were reported to be $22M, but obviously the bigger pool would be the pay-per-view and TV downstream earnings as well as the ecosystem benefit for Las Vegas and Sphere. For context, UFC parent TKO Group Holdings' revenue split is 65% from media rights, 20% from live event revenue, and 10% sponsorships.
Unsurprisingly, this event drew from affluent trade areas, with 22% of the captured audience trade area representing the Experian Mosiac Power Elite customer segment (the wealthiest households in the U.S.) and 14% representing Booming with Confidence (prosperous, established couples in their peak earning years living in suburban homes).
We also see that affluence in where attendees also visited in terms of casinos, hotels, and entertainment. The Wynn led as a venue, which was to be expected given that it neighbors Sphere. The same can be said for The Cosmopolitan. However, notably absent was Flamingo Las Vegas, which resides between The Sphere and The Cosmopolitan, which again speaks to who the attendees were.
