Dana White: ‘There’s no f*cking way’ UFC will do another White House event

UFC Freedom 250 at the White House turned out to be a historic, one-of-a-kind event for the sport of MMA, but it will never be repeated again, according to Dana White.

“I can’t afford it,” White said when asked if there was any chance the event could be repeated. “There’s no f*cking way we can do this again. I’ll never do the Sphere again, and we’ll never do this again.”

Dana White when asked if they could do another event at the White House:

I can’t afford it. There’s no fucking way we can do this again. I’ll never do the Sphere again and we’ll never do this again. pic.twitter.com/ZvGljTAmOu

— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) June 15, 2026

Court documents filed as part of a lawsuit from the Public Integrity Project revealed that Freedom 250 cost the UFC more than $60 million and tens of thousands of hours of labor. White had told TIME Magazine ahead of the event that the company expected to lose around $30 million even after corporate partners helped offset costs. TKO president Mark Shapiro had warned on an earnings call back in February that the number could only move in one direction — north — and it did.

For context, UFC 306 at the Sphere in Las Vegas in 2024 cost $20 million to produce, which at the time was the most expensive event in company history. White had boasted that Freedom 250 was going to “make the Sphere look like f*cking ash tray money.”

What that money — which White insisted was paid entirely by the UFC and not taxpayers — bought was unlike anything the sport had ever seen. The UFC erected a 92-foot, 600-ton steel structure called The Claw on the South Lawn to serve as the arena canopy, constructed a 4,300-seat temporary venue, and moved hundreds of truckloads of equipment through Washington in the months leading up to the event. The South Lawn seats were distributed almost entirely by invitation, with the majority going to members of the armed forces. White wanted the only visible backdrop to be the White House on one side and the Washington Monument on the other, and he got it. Nearly 200,000 people descended on the Ellipse over two days to watch on outdoor screens, 60,000 showed up for the weigh-ins alone, and all seven fights on the card ended inside the distance.

“This was a one of one that will never happen again,” White said. “For all of us that were involved — from the fighters to my staff to the media to their families and everybody — it’s just this was a unique, cool experience.”

Losing $30 million-plus to stage the world’s most expensive MMA event on the White House lawn — doubling as an 80th birthday bash for the President — is a hell of a way to do business. But Dana White got exactly what he wanted — a spectacle that nobody will ever be able to replicate, including him, even if it was behind a paywall.