Despite expectations, however, there are several factors that could hamper the event and make it fail. Let’s take a look at the current state of the event and the factors surrounding it.

UFC 306 will compete with major boxing event headlined by Canelo Alvarez

One of the biggest talking points heading into September 14 is that UFC 306 will compete with a major boxing event at the T-Mobile Arena, headlined by Mexico’s biggest star, Canelo Alvarez.

While UFC CEO Dana White has stated that he is not concerned about the clashes between the events, I think there is some cause for concern.

Both events will take place on the Mexican Independence Day weekend, so a lot of eyes will be on Canelo, as he is the country’s biggest star and the most well-known name of all the competitors in both events.

I imagine the UFC is banking on the more casual portion of the fight fanbase choosing to pay for their PPV over the boxing PPV because of the intrigue of the Sphere.

That said, given that Canelo is a much bigger name and is fighting on a significant day in his country’s history, I expect the boxing event to surpass the UFC in terms of PPV buys.

This isn’t the first time the UFC has gone headlining a boxing match with the Mexican star. In 2019, UFC 244 featured Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal as the headliner, with a boxing match between Canelo and Sergey Kovalev.

At the time, the fight between Canelo and Kovalev was postponed because they did not want to participate directly in the UFC BMF title fight. However, that will not happen this time.

Ticket sales for UFC 306 don’t seem to have gone as well as expected

Dana White recently revealed that the event cost over $20 million to put on. As expected, ticket prices are outrageous.

When tickets first went on sale, the cheapest ticket was an astonishing $3,000 due to the limited seating in the Sphere. Despite that, probably due to the initial struggle to get tickets that expensive, they lowered the prices and the current cheapest ticket is $757.

There are still a lot of tickets available, but the most likely reason for this is the prices. So it is not that this is only indicative of the event and how successful it will be. However, it can certainly be a factor that can determine why the event may not be as successful as the promotion hopes.

The UFC 306 fight card isn’t as strong as people initially hoped

In addition to Conor McGregor, Sean O’Malley, perhaps the UFC’s biggest star, will headline the event, defending his 135-pound title against Merab Dvalishvili.

While it is a very intriguing fight for MMA fans and its name transcends the sport, the rest of the fight card is not very strong and is put together in quite a shocking way.

In the co-main event, Mexican star Alexa Grasso defends her title against Valentina Shevchenko in a historic trilogy, but compared to Canelo her star status is unmatched.

There are only 10 fights on the entire card, while UFC PPVs normally consist of 13-15 fights. Outside of the main event and co-main event, there are only four ranked fighters on the entire card, and two of those are women’s bantamweight, which is considered the weakest division in the sport.

It seems like the promotion is putting too much emphasis on the fact that the event is in the Sphere, and they’re assuming that factor will be the most successful. However, you still need to put together a solid battle card, and this isn’t that.

White has spoken openly about the challenges of pulling off an event like this, and there is a dedicated production team of extremely talented people that has been assembled to work on this. Somehow they have to make it a unique viewing experience for people watching at home, and any production issues will greatly impact the experience.

I think this event will ultimately be successful, but they’ll have to make a great performance of it, considering the huge hype White and co. have created for it.

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