UFC 306 at The Sphere: UFC Turns Up the Production and Operations Firepower for Historic Pay-Per-View Event

UFC 306 at The Sphere: UFC Turns Up the Production and Operations Firepower for Historic Pay-Per-View Event Production honors Mexican culture; one-of-a-kind venue challenges operations team By Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor

Thursday, September 12, 2024 - 12:40 pm

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The UFC has adapted and evolved to create memorable broadcasting innovation since the COVID-19 pandemic, including Fight Island in Abu Dhabi and the opening of its Apex facility in 2020, celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2023, and producing its 300th pay-per-view (PPV) event this past spring. All these moments have led to UFC 306: Noche UFC on Sept. 14, which will be the first sports event in the short yet exhilarating history of Sphere in Las Vegas. The mixed-martial-arts company's biggest production to date is considered a once-in-lifetime opportunity for the production and operations teams and the start of a new era for the company.

UFC 306 will honor Mexican Independence Day and the country's impact on the MMA community. (Photo: Zuffa LLC)

There's a lot of excitement because the entire company has been working hard to be ready to pull off this event, says Craig Borsari, CCO/executive producer, UFC, but now that we're in the final stage of preparation, there's also pressure to complete everything that we want to share with the world. We had limited time to rehearse, so the shift has gone from content creation to how we're going to execute our show.

Quick Drive-Away: Crews Visit Sphere To Plan Creative Elements, Tech Infrastructure After attending a show during U2's short-term residency at the venue that has taken the live-entertainment industry by storm, UFC President/CEO Dana White knew that he wanted to host an event there. Uniting a vision of being the first to produce a sports event there and to pay homage to Mexico's contributions to the MMA community, the marquee main event will take place on the Saturday before Mexican Independence Day Monday, Sept. 16. To make the PPV a love letter to the nation, according to White, Borsari has worked closely with others in the production department and external partners - including Segments Director Carlos L pez Estrada, who provided his talents to such projects as Encanto and Frozen II - to create a stunning narrative honoring Mexican culture.

Carlos oversaw the production of six, 90-second films that will run as our primary storytelling device, says Borsari. We don't want to take away from the elite athletes performing in the Octagon, but, at the same time, we don't want to remove people from this bigger story that we're telling throughout the evening. It was a real balancing act to figure out exactly how much we should lean into unique media content that we're creating as well as cover the fights.

Six separate vignettes were developed for the show by independent artists:

Chapter I: In the Beginning - directed by Joe Sill and Brian Tang, co-produced by Impossible Objects

Chapter II: Early Civilizations - directed by Saad Moosajee, co-produced by Analog Studios

Chapter III: Rituals & Traditions - directed by Paul Nicholls, co-produced by Factory Fifteen)

Chapter IV: Battle for Independence - directed by Diego Huacuja, co-produced by Basa Estudios

Chapter V: Fighters & Heroes - directed by Shynola, co-produced by Nexus Studios

Chapter VI: Mexico Today and Tomorrow - directed by Paul Trillo, co-produced by Factory Fifteen

Borsari was assisted by SVP, Production and Programming, Chris Kartzmark on the overall direction of each piece; by SVP, Global Brand and Creative, Heidi Noland with the event's visual identity and on-screen aesthetic; by SVP, Originals Production, Tucker Greene, who gave input on the six films; and SVP/Coordinating Producer Zach Candito, who's responsible for stitching together the show at the front bench.

Fresh off Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour, Silent House Group has been brought in to produce the in-venue show. Its team includes CEO/Founder Baz Halpin, CCO/Head of Production Linda Gierahn, and President Mark Bracco as producers and Coordinating Producer Vincent Richards.

Heidi Noland (left) and Dana White confer during the planning phase.

Borsari is also leaning heavily on other personnel outside UFCi. Oscars and Emmys director and executive producer Glenn Weiss will direct the entertainment aspect of the show on ESPN, and Segments Producer Valerie Bush will work alongside L pez Estrada. BLINK Inc. President Tom Colbourne as screen content director and BLINK Post Production Supervisor Richard Cullen as screen content producer will get the elements on the massive 160,000-sq.-ft., 16Kx16K-resolution interior LED Media Plane. Also helping will be artist contributor/consultant Jorge Gutierrez, who served as a creative consultant on 2017 Disney hit Coco.

Another wrinkle to this show is worth noting from a technical angle: this will be UFC's first show on ESPN broadcast in 1080p. That aspect alone is a new element to be fleshed out by the operations crew, but adding that to the operations needs for a production in a venue that has never hosted such a production before is a challenge. Luckily, UFC has SVP, Event Production, Tim O'Toole and Director, Technical Operations, Greg Louw, who know how to solve those problems. For this hefty lift, they're rolling in UFC's typical truck, the A and B units of NEP NCP7, for the weigh-in and press conference the night before the fight. The scale of the show also required the A and B units of both NEP EN3 and Denali Summit for production of the fight.

We can't produce our press conference and weigh-in normally out of our event truck, says O'Toole. They're happening in the parking lot [of Sphere], and there's no connectivity between the facility

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