Inside UFC 306 at the Sphere: How the venue will transform and how it will look for fans and fighters

UFC debuts at the viral Las Vegas Sphere on Saturday for a card dubbed “Noche UFC.” There’s arguably more intrigue about the production than the actual fights, headlined by UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley vs. Merab Dvalishvili.

UFC president Dana White has promised an unrivaled sporting spectacle but is tight-lipped on the specifics. UFC chief content officer and executive producer Craig Borsari, who oversees the entire Sphere production, gave CBS Sports insight into the event. Borsari is responsible for building the production team and overseeing pre-production content and execution on fight night.

“Dana White gave me a checkbook to get the top players in the business,” Borsari told CBS Sports, comparing his role to that of a sports team’s general manager and head coach, and White to a team owner. “That’s always easier for a GM when they have a budget that’s as healthy as what we’re dealing with on this event.”

Noche UFC, which is also UFC 306 in the numbered PPV order, takes place over Mexican Independence Day weekend. The pay-per-view is promoted as a “love letter” to Mexican culture and history. The Sphere will alternate between two stages: 360-degree short films and immersive animated environments dubbed “worlds.”

“We will use six 90-second films that will take over the entire media plane,” Borsari said. “It’s like you’re watching the film postcards. All of our attention, the viewers’ attention in the Sphere and the viewers at home, will be on the screen when those six 90-second films run.”

UFC aims to recreate the immersive Sphere experience for those watching on pay-per-view. Two separate TV trucks will accompany their regular A and B unit fight trucks to achieve the feat. The promotion acquired a separate director and cameras designed to capture all the content on the media plane to take viewers at home to the inside of the Sphere.

“This is a unique event and we took a very unique approach and felt it was important for viewers at home to get the sense of the volume of the space they’re in and try to experience that,” Borsari said. “There’s nothing like being there, but we wanted to come as close as we could with specialty cameras, a separate director and camera compliment that would allow us to get as close as possible.

“We’re not going full frame in the broadcast but it feels as if you’re seated in the 300 or 400 level of the Sphere watching the show.”

The Sphere is primarily a concert venue designed specifically for musicians as opposed to when musicians take their shows to stadiums and have to fit them to stadium-specific acoustics and aesthetics. Sporting events require clearer views of the participants. Borsari confirmed the fighters will not be magnified across the entire dome, raising questions about the viewing experience for fans further back in the venue. Strategically placed visual cutouts on the dome will call back to a more traditional pay-per-view experience during the fights.

“We’ll utilize an acronym called ‘I-MAG’ or ‘image magnification.’ Our typical broadcast feed will go into these I-MAG cutouts within the environment,” Borsari said. “It won’t be a full media takeover. That presents all sorts of issues. If the fighters were 80 feet tall, you’d get distortion and it would get wonky in the way you’d be experiencing the fight.”

Another concern is whether the overwhelming visual spectacle of the Sphere will distract the fighters. It stands to reason that such a sweeping visual display could impact the fighters’ focus. The athletes walk into the Sphere just as blind as the fans. 

“I think it will be something more than a sporting event. It’ll be a crossover between sports events, graphics, and storytelling…” Valentina Shevchenko, who challenges UFC women’s flyweight champion Alexa Grasso in the co-main event, told CBS Sports. “It’s something huge that’s very hard to imagine what it will be like.”

Dvalishvili’s concerns about distractions are remedied knowing O’Malley will be equally impacted.

“If there are any distractions, it’ll also be for my opponent and not only for me,” Dvalishvili told CBS Sports. “I’m just going to focus on O’Malley and he’ll do the same. We’re professional fighters.”

UFC women’s flyweight champion Grasso and featherweight contender Diego Lopes, the latter of whom fights Brian Ortega on Saturday’s main card, are confident they’ll tune out any distractions once the bell sounds.

“At the end of the day, when you’re in the fight there are some points where you can’t hear about anything going on outside,” Grasso told CBS Sports. “You’re so focused on your fight that nothing else matters.”

“Maybe for other athletes but not for me,” Lopes told CBS Sports through an interpreter.. “I know what I’m there for and why I’m in this situation. All I need to do is put in the work, do a good job, and come out with a victory. Maybe after the fights, I’ll watch the video and see what it looks like. For me, all of that won’t be a distraction.”

Check out the full interview with Merab Dvalishvili below.

Borsari and his team identified fighter distractions as an obstacle early in the creative process. The promotion will tone down the busyness of their animated worlds during the fights. UFC has programmed these digital worlds to be more active during walkouts and less overwhelming during fights to avoid distracting fighters.

“When the fights are going on, that’s what we’re calling the most ‘quiet state.’ It’s all about the fights at that point,” Borsari said. “We want to have a very cool environment for those in the venue and for the folks at home watching the broadcast, but we don’t want to be the primary driver of the creative at that moment. Anytime there are two fighters in the Octagon, it’s about them. So we’ve adjusted the state of these worlds to really quiet down and allow us to focus on the fight action.”

White has repeatedly claimed that UFC’s Sphere show will be a one-time deal. That’s largely due to the event’s exorbitant cost. White told combat sports journalist Kevin Iole last month that UFC had spent $20 million and counting to produce the Sphere card. Borsari elaborated on some of the costs required to prepare and execute a show of this scale.

“It’s not cheap to assemble the team,” Borsari said. “These folks don’t live in Las Vegas. People are flying in to test the content. The Sphere needs to be up and operational with all of their technical people to open up the building. It’s expensive.

“It’s imperative that you get in there and have access to this unique screen. There is nothing like it. We did some testing in Burbank at Big Dome which is about 25% the size of the Sphere. But there’s nothing that gives you the experience of looking at the content you’ve created in the Sphere than actually being in the seats, listening and looking at the content that’s been created.”

Borsari is open-minded about future Sphere shows, reiterating the decision is not up to him. Borsari is confident, however, that the experience producing this one-off spectacle will carry over to future UFC shows.

“Ultimately, it’ll be Dana’s call if we ever do it again. He has gone on the record and said he thinks it’s a one-and-done,” Borsari said. “I think that’s a better question really to be answered after Sept. 14 to be fair. We’ve worked with some folks we no doubt want to work with again. We’ve been introduced to technology we’ll implement in our shows moving forward. We will be utilizing cameras for the first time on Sept. 14, we’ll integrate them into our broadcasts moving forward.”

Check out the full interview with Craig Borsari below.

UFC 306 is expected to draw a record $21 million gate for the promotion, White told Iole on Tuesday. It’s a tremendous accomplishment offset by the excessive costs to produce the show. So much so the UFC linked up with Riyadh Season as its first-ever title sponsor. Borsari insists as far as UFC 306 is concerned, UFC’s profit margins are second to making a statement.

“We’re just trying to make the biggest impact from an entertainment perspective we possibly can and showcase our sport and athletes in a way we’ve never done before. Not even remotely close,” Borsari said. “We’re just really excited to share this with fans and hopefully, some new fans who are tuning in because there is intrigue for how we’re going to approach this.

“The ethos of this company is being first, going big and taking big swings at opportunities that can reshape the way sports and entertainment are presented to viewers going forward.”