FROM ARENA TO OCTAGON
UFC 216 coming to Rogers Place
The date will be Sept. 9, the oneyear anniversary of the opening of Rogers Place.
UFC 216 will be held in Edmonton.
“I’d love to tell you that this is what we planned all along, especially with the exact date. That would indicate real great planning, but it’s just a terrific coincidence,” said Bob Nicholson, vice-chairman and chief executive of the Oilers Entertainment Group, who revealed at the start of hockey season to your correspondent that he expected to seal a deal for a major UFC numbered event.
“We were just looking for a key date in there.”
UFC 216 planned to be one of the biggest UFC numbered events of the year with an expectation of two title fights.
Nicholson, who is in Anaheim with the Edmonton Oilers, who hold a 1-0 lead in their secondround Stanley Cup playoff series against the Anaheim Ducks after a 5-3 win Wednesday, said the OEG had been working on landing the blue-chip UFC event “for a long time.”
“We were looking originally at a May date. Now I’m really happy we didn’t,” he said of his hockey club that could be playing through the entire month for the first time since 2006.
“Then we started looking at September because it would be the best fit for their entire worldwide schedule.
“It goes back to having great partners. We did the Professional Bull Riding deal with IMG and now we’re able to bring this to Edmonton as an extension of that partnership,” he said of the International Management Group.
“We don’t know who the fighters are yet. That will be next. There’s a process UFC does with all of these events.” First they do the soft launch of the announcement and then they start to look at who the fighters are as it goes along.
“The guarantee is that it will be one of their main major fight cards of the year. I don’t know the details yet about the television audience and the pay per view. We’ll get more of that information as things roll out here.”
Joe Carr, UFC’s senior vicepresident, head of international and content, said his organization is “thrilled” to be bringing an event to Edmonton.
“Fans have long been asking us to bring the octagon back to Alberta, and we can’t wait to deliver a blockbuster event at state-of-the-art Rogers Place this September,” he said.
It’s interesting that the event will go head-to-head with the Edmonton Eskimos annual Labour Day rematch game against the Calgary Stampeders.
Edmonton now becomes the 10th Canadian city to host a UFC card. UFC 216 marks the UFC’s second Canadian event this year, following a successful return to Halifax in February.
A special UFC 216 microsite — UFC.com/edmonton — launches today, providing registering fans with pre-sale access to tickets and event related information. Stay tuned for bout announcements.
Ticket and card information will be released at a later date.