Saturday’s UFC 248 event drew an announced attendance of 15,077 fans for a live gate of $2,742,906.20.
UFC officials announced the figures following the event, which MMA Junkie attended. UFC 248 took place Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The main card aired on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.
In the main event, middleweight champion Israel Adesanya (19-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) defended his title for the first time with a unanimous decision over Yoel Romero (13-5 MMA, 9-4 UFC). The mostly lackluster fight was derided by fans and analysts and maybe made to look a little worse than it was because of the crowd-pleaser that was the co-main event.
In that fight, Zhang Weili (21-1 MMA, 5-0 UFC) picked up her first women’s strawweight title defense with a split decision over former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk (16-4 MMA, 10-4 UFC) in a “Fight of the Night” winner that already is being talked about as the best fight in women’s MMA history and a certain candidate for “Fight of the Year” come December.
UFC 248 was the promotion’s 16th visit to T-Mobile Arena in its home city. The attendance mark puts it ninth all time for the UFC in that venue. It was the UFC’s second event there so far in 2020. UFC 246 in January drew more than 19,000 fans for a live gate in excess of $11 million for Conor McGregor’s 40-second TKO win over Donald Cerrone.
