UFC at White House a success, but never again, Dana White says - ESPN

WASHINGTON — Dana White stood at the dais with the winning fighters flanking him at 3 a.m. Monday, hours after the UFC president and CEO completed one of the more audacious events of his career, a fight card on the South Lawn of the White House. He made one thing clear.

He's never doing this again.

«I can't afford it,» White said. «I'll never do the Sphere again, and we'll never do this again.»

White kept to what he insisted for months, that the White House card would be a «one-of-one» event and not the beginning of a trend, similar to how he viewed his promotion playing host to the first sporting event at The Sphere in Las Vegas in 2024.

Yet White insisted that Sunday night's UFC Freedom 250 exceeded all of his expectations for what he had called the biggest event in the history of his promotion and perhaps the biggest in the history of mixed martial arts.

White declined to provide specifics but indicated UFC hit the numbers it sought for its $60 million production.

«In every way you can gauge success,» White said.

The merchandise, he said, hit all-time metrics. He said the numbers on Paramount were «monstrous» and estimated 200,000 people were on the Ellipse over his two-day fan fest. Even the weather, which threatened to create massive delays Sunday night, largely held off and turned into a pleasant Washington, D.C., evening after a slight delay.

Despite that, White made clear that he does not want to do more outdoor fights because of the uncontrollable variables. He said he and President Donald Trump had discussed doing a fight for troops in 2027 but coordinating with the military to have fights on military bases takes time.

«He wanted to do it this year,» White said. «And I said, sir, I need a year to recover