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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief While the UFC has gotten used to going to new cities and setting attendance and gate records, they had trouble with their venture to Portland for UFC 102.
The hometown superstar Randy Couture headlining the card was not enough to move the pricey UFC event tickets at the rate they were hoping, but even without selling the 20,000 seat Rose Garden Arena out the UFC brought in the fifth largest gate in Oregon state history, with 16,088 in attendance for a $1.92 million in ticket sales.
Dana White contributed the less than record outing to poor planning on the part of the UFC. With Portland's unemployment rate around 12%, the ticket prices were out of the range of many in the area. "I'm pissed off that we're not the No. 1 gate in the history of this place," White said at the post fight press conference. "That bums me out because I think we could have done it had we dialed it in right... I've got this thing priced, ticket-wise, for the same price I've got L.A. priced for. [Expletive] stupid. We messed up here. I'm a little bummed out about that."
It was still all in all a successful event, though not to the levels they believed perhaps they could reach. White did say that the UFC would return to Portland, but a trip to Seattle would be in line first for the Pacific Northwest region.
Penick's Analysis: It's the same case in a lot of the new markets the UFC goes to, as there are many areas that simply don't have the disposable income to afford $600+ floor tickets for an event. Now, they've already sold out the American Airlines Center in Dallas, but that's simply a much bigger market than Portland. Clearly they understand they could have priced it differently and likely will when they make their way back there.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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