After two previous attempts at hosting an MMA event in Utah fell short of expectations, a half-decade wait, shifting demographics and economics — plus a pinch hit from a new face with some juice — wound up creating the perfect storm.
After two previous attempts at an MMA event in Utah fell short of expectations, shifting demographics and economics, plus a pinch hit from a new face with some juice wound up creating the perfect storm.
“Last year — and I don’t blame them — they still felt like it was a huge risk,” Mark Powell, the Delta Center’s Vice President of Events, told The Salt Lake Tribune this week.For starters, with less than 3 million people living along the Wasatch Front, the greater Salt Lake City area simply doesn’t have the demographic drawing power of other metro markets.
“We bid on one [event] in 2012 and we were awarded it, but they wanted to have it on a Sunday night,” said Jeff Robbins, President and CEO of the Utah Sports Commission. “We kept telling them we don’t think Sunday will be a good night. It didn’t sell well, and so they moved that one to San Diego.”Still, Robbins & Co. kept trying.
Though both men had a receptive audience in Peter Dropick, UFC’s Executive VP of Event Development & Operations, owing to years of relationship-building, they still were facing an uphill battle. “Look, what’s happened in Salt Lake City between 2016 and 2022 and ‘23 [is] a radical transformation in the economy, tremendous growth,” said Epstein. “The Salt Lake City market has completely transformed for the better, frankly, from an economic standpoint over that six- or seven-year period.”
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