Dana White says the UFC’s next spectacle event is close enough that an announcement could land within a week.
Speaking on The Pat McAfee Show, White said the concept came from Craig Borsari, the promotion’s head of production, who pitched it after running the White House card in June. White said he has calls scheduled once UFC 330 is finished, and that Borsari would then fly out and walk the site.
“If I end up doing this, I’ll announce it here first,” White said.
He gave no location, no date, and no explanation of what makes the event difficult. White has referred to it only as the impossible event, and he has repeatedly said it will not top what the promotion pulled off in Washington.
What The White House Card Actually Cost
UFC Freedom 250 ran on the South Lawn on June 14, a seven-fight card staged on President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and built around the country’s 250th anniversary.
It lost money, and the UFC knew it would. TKO Group Holdings chief financial officer Andrew Schleimer told investors on the company’s second-quarter earnings call that the event produced a loss of roughly $30 million, a figure the company had anticipated. Production ran about $60 million, and the promotion sold no tickets, seating around 4,000 invited guests instead.
TKO’s adjusted EBITDA margin fell from 59 percent to 52 percent year over year, which Schleimer tied directly to the card. He also told analysts the promotion used the event to sign partners on deals that run into 2027 and beyond.
Why The Next One Matters More
Mark Shapiro, TKO’s president and chief operating officer, said Freedom 250 generated more than $1 billion in earned media value. That number is the argument for doing it again.
What White has not addressed is whether these cards are one-off stunts or a repeatable line of business. Fight Island, the Sphere show for Noche UFC in 2024, and the White House event were each treated as singular. A fourth would start to look like a strategy.
He has also floated the Roman Colosseum in the past, a site tied to the collapsed Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk negotiation that White has since called impossible on logistics.
White is in Philadelphia this weekend for UFC 330, where he stepped between Arman Tsarukyan and Mauricio Ruffy at the UFC 331 press conference on Friday. Islam Makhachev defends the welterweight championship against Ian Machado Garry in the main event.
