When the emir of Qatar sat at a table of world leaders at the G7 Summit this week in France, the first thing he did was talk to President Donald Trump about the Ultimate Fighting Championship card at the White House.
“This UFC is growing bigger and bigger,” mused Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. “It used to be boxing but now UFC is [getting to be as or more popular].”
As the first professional sporting event at the White House, UFC Freedom 250 made global headlines on a scale perhaps never seen before in the history of the mixed martial arts property. The card drew widespread coverage across not just sports, but also political and popular culture.
While proponents viewed it as a proper celebration of America’s 250th birthday, critics contended that UFC and its associated sponsors risked irreparable brand damage from politicizing itself and tying itself so closely to the president. Executives from UFC and parent company TKO Group Holdings insist the event wasn’t political.
Still, the G7 exchange pointed to how the White House card raised UFC’s already formidable profile to previously unimaginable heights. According to Google Trends data that dates to 2004, this month is tracking to be the biggest month in UFC history in terms of internet searches about the property.
The June 14 event was nearly flawless from logistical, production and entertainment perspectives, despite a weather delay. In front of 4,300 people and with tens of thousands of fans at an adjacent park, all seven fights ended by knockout or technical knockout, marking the first time that every fight on a card ended in such fashion in the history of UFC, which was founded in 1993.
But with America immersed in such a deep political divide — and the outrage over a fighter’s derogatory comment about Michelle Obama — the question is whether the high-profile card is going to elevate UFC’s brand or damage it.
“It’s hard to judge that — what the impact is going to be,” said Dan Palazzolo, a political science professor at the University of Richmond who has studied the nexus of politics and sports. “On one hand, obviously if there had not been this comment about Obama, then it would have been a much more successful event from the standpoint of UFC’s image-making, right? That ‘we’re about a broader audience and we’re just here to play the game.’ But total-sum impact is hard to gauge at this point.”
TKO said that it planned to spend $60 million to finance the White House card and expected to make half of that back through sponsorships.
The card aired exclusively on Paramount+ even though Paramount Skydance Corp. has aired parts of two prior events this year on CBS. Those cards had more fights and were thus longer in duration, but the decision was notable, given that politicians have started asking questions about whether too many sports have moved to paywalled digital streaming platforms. Still, it may have helped boost Paramount+ materially, with estimates from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower showing that downloads of Paramount+ nearly quadrupled from its prior 30-day average for a 276% increase.
Almost 130,000 people attended the UFC fan fest over two days, including 60,000 for the ceremonial weigh-ins the day before the fights, which were held on a Sunday in a rarity for the typically Saturday-centric UFC. Also, there were similarly surreal scenes Friday with an evening press conference on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
The event appeared to be a success from a security perspective, with few issues taking place after the FBI foiled a potential plot to attack the scene. UFC President and CEO Dana White told TMZ this week there were other threats that have not been revealed publicly. On the day of Freedom 250, Trump announced a deal had been reached to end the war with Iran, but security experts in recent months expressed concerns about potential attacks at major sporting events as fallout from the military conflict.
In the buildup to Freedom 250, Reuters conducted a poll showing just 16% of respondents saying it was appropriate for Trump to hold UFC fights at the White House. Still, UFC got huge amounts of mainstream attention, like Time magazine putting White on its cover.
David Andrews, a professor at the University of Maryland who has written a book on Trump’s impact on sports, is skeptical of calling the card a “sports washing” exercise. “Surely, the acknowledged intent of the event was to positively engage UFC enthusiasts — many of whom, the assumption is, would be Trump supporters — while the unavoidable and complementary outcome was to negatively excite those less predisposed to UFC and, by assumption, Trump,” Andrews wrote in an email to Sports Business Journal. “I don’t think it could be viewed as a form of sports washing as it is generally understood, as it was not really prompted by the realistic possibility of changing the perception of UFC among the general populace. [But] it did unselfconsciously accentuate the political orientation of the UFC.”
Several of UFC’s existing sponsors participated in the event, such as Bud Light, Cuervo, Monster Energy, Polymarket, Crypto.com and Ram trucks. Some new brands came on board around the event, including Scotts Miracle-Gro, CrowdStrike, Exodus and SuperFile.
But from White’s perspective, the event paid off in spades, and he was unconcerned with any critics.
“In every way that you can gauge success — we beat the all-time merch number by double, we beat the budget by 40%. I just got off the phone with [Paramount Skydance CEO] David Ellison, [and] he’s going crazy. ... Production was off the charts,” White said at his post-event press conference at the J.W. Marriott Washington D.C. “The list just goes on and on. ... You couldn’t have had a better night — it was absolutely perfect.”
