UFC COO Lawrence Epstein spoke recently with John McAuley for The National and discussed the five year deal, signed last year, with Abu Dhabi that resulted, most prominently, with the return of the league in force on Fight Island. The first shows held during the COVID-19 global pandemic were in Florida and then at the UFC APEX in Nevada, but travel restrictions into and out of the USA were such that very many international fighters were gated.
Fight Island is a 2.5 square mile quarantine bubble on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, that hosts approximately 2,000 people – fighters, corners, officials, UFC staff, plus professionals to run the hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions, and construction crews. The scope of the undertaking is extraordinary. During the first four-event run, there were reportedly 18,000 COVID-19 tests administered. The five-event run unfolding will do more still. That’s $2 million a go for q-tips up the nose alone.
We’ve been partnered with Abu Dhabi at various levels for over a decade now, so this relationship is deep and it’s long-standing, said Epstein. And it just continues to get deeper. The partnership we’ve got here in Abu Dhabi is really second to none as far as relationships we have around the world.
What we’ve been able to do just this year in an incredibly challenging Covid environment to put on these two Fight Island series of events has been incredible. And we just couldn’t have done it without the cooperation and the partnerships we have here in Abu Dhabi.
As far as I’m concerned – and I know Dana feels the same way – we want to be in business with Abu Dhabi for ever. They’re incredible partners and they do everything you could ever ask of a partner. And I feel really proud that we’ve delivered for them.”
One of the things that’s really exciting is we’ve built a real brand in Fight Island. This is not just events we’re doing here in Abu Dhabi; we’ve built a permanent part of the UFC landscape in the Fight Island brand and that’s something that’s going to continue on for many, many years to come.
It’s been a huge part of the success that we’ve had the last several months. Dana, as we know, is a marketing genius – he figures out ways to get people excited and interested with a little bit of mystery and, of course, he does it with incredible promotion. And Fight Island is really going to rank up there at the top, if not at the top, of the ideas that he’s come up with over the years.
“He built the mystery of it, this interest, this excitement. And then delivering with this first-class infrastructure that we’ve got here on Yas Island. Supported, of course, by just some incredible fights, it culminated in a huge success for the UFC. Not just for our hardcore fans that love the sport, but for new fans that were coming in to sample UFC.”
While all events during the pandemic have been held in empty arenas, Epstein said there have been discussions about potentially allowing spectator at UFC 254, which is headlined by lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Interim champ Justin Gaethje.
This will be something that will be up to the local authorities here in Abu Dhabi, said Epstein. The local health authorities and a variety of others will have to ultimately make that decision. At the end of the day, we’re really excited for the world to return back to normal.
Having fans in the arenas for UFC events make the events in many ways. We’ll see what happens. We’re certainly willing to work with our partners here in Abu Dhabi and figure out what works for them.
“Obviously the best-case scenario is to get back to full stadiums and the crowds that we were so used to. But we’ve got a new reality with COVID; we’ve got to deal with it and figure out ways to continue to move on.
I won’t get into specifics, but I can tell you that we’re making a huge financial commitment, as are our partners here in Abu Dhabi to put on these events. As you can imagine, it’s not cheap to move people around the world on chartered airplanes and stay in first-class hotels and put on events. It’s definitely an expensive undertaking, but for us, it’s absolutely worth it.”
We’re open to any and all ideas potentially to continue to deepen this relationship with Abu Dhabi, whether that’s having some sort of permanent establishment or other types of arrangement.
Listen, we’ve got a five-year deal, we’re only in Year 2 of that. I hope our relationship continues on for many, many decades to come. At the end of the day, we love this partnership, we love this relationship and we want it to continue in a lot of different forms.
The plan at present is to hold the rest of the UFC events in 2020 at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, but a third return to Fight Island has not been ruled out. Abu Dhabi is reportedly seeing an increase in cases of COVID-19, so a return to a live audience in unlikely for UFC 254, but the show will go on.
