Tomorrow (May 25th) Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is making a few announcements outside Rogers Centre in Toronto.
No, MMA is not yet “legal” in Ontario so that is not the announcement. However, they are apparently opening a Toronto office to run their Canadian operations. As well – much like they did in Vancouver in advance of having the approval to run shows – they are announcing they are aiming for a UFC event at Rogers Centre for March 26, 2011.
I actually like that strategy. Shows the world that UFC is serious and have their ducks in a row to make the event happen. Now, Ken Hayashi and his Ontario Athletic Commission just has to remove their ill informed bias against MMA and make it all happen.
I would like to hope UFC will make one other announcement – a big UFC viewing party at Rogers Centre for June 12th to celebrate the Vancouver debut of UFC 115.
Give the City of Toronto a bit of a taste of the economic impact a UFC event will bring. In Montreal, this has been $20 to $25 million for each of the three UFC events held in the City. So what I would do for the viewing party is sell seats for $15, bring in a bunch of UFC fighters to sign autographs, etc. and then donate the money for the seat sales to a Toronto charity.
According to the Rogers Centre website, no events are scheduled for June 12th but the next day their is a football game. So, use the football configuration and broadcast UFC off the video screens already in the Centre.
Rogers Centre (as a very vested and interested future host site for a live Toronto UFC event) could donate the venue and keep the proceeds of concession sales.
At $15 a ticket and 46,000 fans (roughly the capacity for the football setup) UFC could donate $690,000 to a Toronto charity.
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