UFC Hawaii was supposed to happen in 2018 and then the State of Hawaii Government got involved. UFC president Dana White said today at a UFC 223 press conference in New York that talks with the Hawaii Tourism Authority stalled. Dana said, “Hawaii was happening this year and it got shut down by the tourism board there. So it won’t happen anytime soon. We were geared up and ready to go there this year.”
This weekend Hawaii's Max Holloway is stepping up on short notice to fight Khabib for the Lightweight Title and at the press conference this announcement. BJ Penn was talking about coming back to fight at his home.
I watched the Press Conference and just as Max started talking about UFC Hawaii Dana cut him off and broke the news. The look on Max's face was off disappointment. Dana should have told him ahead of time. Max doesn't need anything negative as he faces a monumental task.
Leslie Dance, vice president of marketing and product development for Hawaii Tourism Authority said, “the $6 million price tag, we just couldn’t afford … I mean, that’s not the kind of money that we have. Whether we’ve paid that for the Pro Bowl or not … that’s what they compared it to. I think that’s where they came up with that number. It’s not the type of money we have in our current budget to fund it, but we really did want to make it work.”
The Hawaii Tourism Authority offered the UFC $1 million dollars. The State of Hawaii government wastes millions on various projects, and some how they can only come up with $1 million dollars to pay for an event that is going to bring MILLIONS into the State.
By the way a Bill is advancing through the Legislature to CUT the funding for the Hawaii Tourism Authority because they are just focused on the "old" concept of tourism and not looking at the impacts of what they do. Here you go.
I don't understand how this can be the case. UFC has had events in various small towns and less prosperous economies plenty of times. UFC Glasgow is held in the biggest in-door arena in the country, and was far from sold out, and they will absolutely be back in Scotland.
I think something else might be behind this. Someone in the tourism board isn't a fan of mixed martial arts would be my suspicion.
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Thanks for reading and commenting. The Tourism Authority is saying their yearly budget is less than what the UFC is asking. We agree with you in that something else is behind this because if that was going to be their argument then in the first few seconds of their negotiations a year ago all they had to tell Dana was what their budget was and he would then have said NOPE. Upvoted and followed you.
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