By Ed Condran
It’s not just going to be challenging for UFC fighters Sean O’Malley, Alexa Grasso and Brian Ortega when they battle Sept. 14 at Sphere in Las Vegas during UFC 306 at Riyadh: Season Noche UFC.
Chris Kartzmark will be tested, as well. The UFC Vice President of Programming and Production has quite a task at hand. There has never been a sporting event at Sphere, which is a uniquely designed venue.
“We’re going to do something that’s never been done, which is putting on a sporting event at this incredible venue,” Kartzmark said. “There are a lot of technical challenges we face in a concert venue.”
The conventional sporting event takes place in venues with seats, which wrap around the entire venue. “It’s a challenge for us at Sphere since all the seats are on one side,” Kartzmark said. “That’s something we’re working around.”
Lighting the event also is a challenge since Kartzmark and his crew will not be hanging a lighting grid from a conventional jumbotron at the center of the venue. To make the lighting work, Kartzmark will set up the lighting from behind the state-of-theart LED screens. “We’re pushing through the gaps so it’s going to look amazing. We’ll provide the bells and whistles,” he said.
The production is part of the entertainment package as the fighters battle. “That’s the way it is since the lines are blurred between sports and entertainment, particularly in venues like Sphere,” Kartzmark said. “We’re storytellers. We tell our story during a live, unscripted drama, and that’s why people love sports. We enhance the experience.
“That’s something boxing didn’t do. They played to the television audience. We play to both sides, at the venue and on television. We add life to the event in person with the lighting and what we present, and that makes the broadcast more alive. We’re going to do everything to make Noche UFC special.”
Sphere’s 160,000-square-foot and 16K x 16 K resolution display plane, which is the world’s highest-resolution LED display, will deliver a fully immersive visual environment. The concert-grade audio is top notch. Precision and clarity take center stage as combatants batter each other in the ring.
Kartzmark will provide the sizzle, and the fighters will deliver the substance. Noche UFC will celebrate Mexican Independence Day. A UFC Bantamweight Championship bout between current champion O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili is the featured event.
A UFC Women’s Flyweight Championship trilogy bout between current champion Alexa Grasso and former titleholder Valentina Shevchenko will draw considerable attention.
A featherweight bout between former UFC Featherweight Championship challenger Brian Ortega and Diego Lopes is slated. A middleweight bout between LFA Middleweight champion Anthony Hernandez and Michel Pereira was on tap but has been moved to Oct. 14 as the main event.
It’s a well-balanced event that promises to be a fight night to remember.
More: UFC.com and SphereVegas.com
