‘We love’ South Florida. UFC says Saturday’s fights will begin yearly return
South Florida’s pull as a sports-tourism magnet strengthens this weekend as one of the world’s most popular sports entities comes back to the Kaseya Center in downtown Miami.
And all indications are the UFC, or the Ultimate Fighting Championship, will persist with return visits.
“We are planning to continue an annual major event here,” said Lawrence Epstein, UFC’s chief operating officer.
That’s because it has become a top tier market for the organization, he said, alongside Las Vegas and New York City.
“We love the South Florida market,” said the executive.
The UFC, which is based in Las Vegas and has more than 700 million fans, will hold matches on Saturday. The headliner will be the bantamweight title bout between champion Sean O’Malley and Ecuador’s Marlon Vera. O’Malley is one of the UFC’s biggest stars.
About 19,000 people are expected to attend, said Suzanne Amaducci, a board of director with the Miami Downtown Development Authority, or DDA. The majority — about 64% based on ticket sales — will be from out of town. About 10% the attendees are coming from Ecuador, said Epstein.
“We think a lot will stay in downtown,” providing a boost to the local economy, Amaducci said. Overall, “we think the economic impact for this event is going to be close to $50 million,” she estimated.
The DDA provided $100,000 to the UFC for the event, said Amaducci, but that is tied to the group participating in local events. For example, athletes are planning to local hospitals.
Sports in South Florida are drawing spectators from around the world. Formula 1 is becoming a fixture in Miami Gardens and FIFA recently opened an office in Coral Gables to prepare for the 2026 World Cup. That came after soccer icon Lionel Messi started playing with Inter Miami last year.
The Miami Marlins’ stadium has hosted international baseball tournaments, including the wildly popular Serie del Caribe.
“Sports is huge” to tourism to Miami, said Amaducci.
Last April, the UFC returned to Miami for the first time in two decades. It was wildly successful, according to the UFC, with live gate revenue totaling $11.9 million, the sixth-highest grossing event in UFC history.
But locals also cashed in, according to the UFC. A report released on Wednesday commissioned by the UFC and conducted by Applied Analysis says the event generated $47.7 million in local economic activity. Approximately $20.3 million went for wages and salaries as about 517 people were employed.
Meanwhile, tax revenues totaled in excess of $1.4 million sourced to sales, ticket and pay-per-view taxes. Of that, $759,000 was in sales tax, $627,000 in ticket tax and $40,000 in pay-per-view tax.
But the television broadcast and re-watches are where the most value comes, say organizers. The broadcast reaches 900 million households and is conducted in 20 languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, and Russian.
Epstein said the organization intentionally makes the broadcast of each event intimately connected to the host city and heavily promotes it.
“It turns into a huge billboard for South Florida,” he said.