The Freedom 250 fight in front of The White House was not a financial success for the UFC.
On the earnings call for TKO Group Holdings, CFO Andrew Schleimer revealed that the event cost the UFC around $30 million. The cost did not come as a surprise for the company, as it was also a private event on the South Lawn of The White House.
“Given the event’s profile, which as anticipated, resulted in an approximate $30m loss, our margins at UFC as well as on a consolidated basis were meaningfully impacted,” Schleimer said.
The TKO Group’s CFO did say the company was able to “partially offset with sold-out global partnerships inventory.”
The big event in June proved to have significantly higher-than-normal costs to put together. It was estimated that the invite-only event clocked in around 4,300 guests – including President Donald Trump, who was also celebrating his 80th birthday around the event.
From a ratings perspective, the Freedom 250 fight was a big success. It brought in the biggest audience Paramount+ has seen for a live event to date. It garnered 17 million total viewers on Paramount+, according to Nielsen data for U.S. viewing and Adobe Analytics for viewership in Latin America. In the U.S., the event averaged 15.3 million viewers, while viewership in Latin America averaged 1.7 million.
The numbers boosted “UFC Freedom 250” to become the biggest exclusive live event in Paramount+ history, triumphing over UFC 324, which, at the time of its debut in January, broke the record for the largest exclusive live event on Paramount+.
