But one of the issues White did not anticipate as he tried to rebuild the UFC in his image was attracting fans in Mexico. Mexico had a long-time love affair with boxing, and passion for the sport was deeply embedded within the culture.When White began the arduous task of rebuilding the UFC, he was shocked by the lack of interest from Mexico.
The plan grew to feature superstars such as Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Canelo Alvarez, and has been a boxing staple for years.On Saturday, the UFC will stage a fight night card at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that it's dubbed Noche UFC, that will be topped by women's flyweight title fight between champion Alexa Grasso and former champion Valentina Shevchenko. Alvarez, arguably boxing's biggest draw, will fight on Sept.
The UFC provided statistics that it gathered from a variety of places that back its point. YouGov and MRI-Simmons found that in the U.S., there are 10.1 million UFC fans of Hispanic origin, and they represent 21 percent of all UFC fans in the U.S. It found that the UFC has more U.S. fans percentage-wise than any sport besides boxing and Major League Soccer. That includes the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball.
UFC research shows that most of the fans who will attend Saturday will come from nearby California, which is great for the tourism industry in Southern Nevada. And it's a reason why officials at MGM Resorts, which runs T-Mobile, were eager to put on a UFC event this weekend.