Dana White reveals new renders for UFC White House park setup, possible start time change

UFC White House Ellipse render

UFC White House Ellipse render

“Across the street is the Ellipse and for those who don’t know, the Ellipse is a massive park,” White said. “You’ll be able to see the fight from the Ellipse, but we have screens, we’ve got stages, we have music, we have activations over there.

“If you are a fan of the UFC, and especially if you have never been to Washington, D.C., we’re going to give away about 85,000 tickets and there’s a process you have to register for tickets and they’re free, but you should come to Washington, D.C., that week, the week of the fight. We’re going to be doing all kinds of things in D.C. for fans and it’s really a cool city for probably most people have never been and if you’re a UFC fan this is absolutely, positively the time to come to D.C.”

White has frequently expressed trepidation over holding events outdoors due to the possibility that an event could be affected by unpredictable and hazardous weather. The UFC has held events outdoors in Abu Dhabi, but that is a region where there is far less variance with the weather especially in regards to it possibly affecting a show.

Worst comes to worst, White predicts they will be able to move the UFC White House start time if there is the threat of thunder.

“I hate outdoors,” White said. “Outdoors is just way too unpredictable and we’ve gone over this. If it rains, we’re going. If it snows, we’re going. The only that will stop us is lightning, but we’re working with the military. So the military knows the weather 10 days out and they’ll notify us every two hours 10 days out. Seven days out, they’ll notify us every hour. Also, there’s another company that does it for concerts and things like that, they’re very good, too.

“The only thing that kills us is lightning. So we could move the event two hours earlier, two hours after. These are all things that we’ll be playing with the week of the event on top of all the other things that we’ll have going on, which we never had to deal with. The only time I’d ever agreed to do an outdoor event was in Abu Dhabi, which, I could be the weatherman in Abu Dhabi, and I would be right every time.”