Holding an MMA fight card in a 60,000 seat stadium may have seemed risky to some. The UFC took a big risk by booking it's first Ontario show at the massive Rogers Center. After all, the fight promotion is used to selling tickets in 12,000-22,000 seat venues.
Even UFC president Dana White was worried about protecting the integrity of the product even in a scaled down setting of 42,000. He wanted to make sure fans in the upper levels could still see the fight. He was worried, but apparently the fans weren't.
According to the UFC's Tom Wright all 42,000 of the tickets for UFC 129 were gone in four minutes. The promotion will release more for purchase today and tomorrow, which may push the crowd towards the 50,000 mark.
The secondary ticket market is already exploding in terms of price. According to the Canadian Press, one major ticket re-seller has posted some crazy prices:
On Friday, ticket reseller Stubhub offered seats from $104.99 (500 level, Row 20, corner upper tier) to $39,999 (ringside cage, Row 1).
Tickets originally ranged in price from $50 to $800.
This kind of response in Canada should pretty much put to rest where the possible Georges St. Pierre-Anderson Silva fight should be held. It's either Rogers Centre again or Dallas Cowboys Stadium.
Zach Arnold from Fight Opinion agrees:
UFC must be hoping and praying for Georges St. Pierre to beat Jake Shields. If the fight is ugly but GSP wins, that's one thing. If Shields wins and it's exciting, that's a crapshoot. If Shields wins and it's ugly, then I don't know how hot Toronto would stay as a live-event market. Ultimately, the goal is for St. Pierre to win and look strong so that the ‘dream match-up' between him and Anderson Silva happens in Toronto.
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