UFC Targeting 5-7 Events In Europe In 2019
The UFC’s latest show in Europe took place last night in Hamburg, Germany and it would appear that they have every intention keeping a high level of presence in the region.
Speaking during the UFC Fight Night 134 post-fight press conference, UFC VP Dave Shaw stated that the UFC have plans to enter new markets in the coming years and that their entrance in to the Russian market in September is a sign of things to come.
“We have a variety of tier one markets but it’s also part of our business plan to get into as many countries in the regions as possible, it’s one of the reasons why we’ve made such an investment in the Russia business,” he said.
“But yeah, we will continue to go back to the UK, London is obviously a key market for us. We will also keep working hard on regulation in France. We will also continue to look at other markets where we haven’t been; Croatia, Spain, there are a few of them that we could end up going to in the next couple of years.”
With events taking place in London, Liverpool, Hamburg and Moscow in 2018, Shaw later added that European fans should expect 1 or 2 more next year. Venues outside of London appear to still be up in the air, but with the new EPSN US TV deal there appears to be more opportunity for events taking place outside of America.
“Yeah we’re going to target the five to seven amount of events,” he said. “Following some of the details around the news US TV deal with ESPN our outlets are going to go to 42 and 12 events next year.
“So if you assume that we’re going to maintain some level of constant number of events in the US, that gives us the ability to add another 2-3 events in different regions around the world. The European has always proven itself to be very successful, we have a huge fan base and they’ve always been great so we could be adding one here, but we’re making a big investment into China, the Australian business has never been as good as it is now so we have many possibilities.”
Watch the full Dave Shaw post-fight press conference
