UFC ready to launch ‘Fight Island’ project on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island

With UFC 251 set to be held in Abu Dhabi this weekend, the mixed martial arts sports brand will be using the event as a pilot project to determine how it can hold sealed spectator events in the future.

Operating in a 28 kilometre² ‘safety bubble’ on the Emirate’s Yas Island, Abu Dhabi’s Flash Forum will be staging four UFC cards from today (11th July) through to 25th July.

With entry to the event area to be strictly controlled, this weekend’s first event is being used as a test project to determine whether limited numbers of spectators will be able to watch sports events in the precinct.

Entry to the event area is being strictly controlled entry in an attempt to turn the area into a COVID-19-free zone for athletes and local and international event staff.

Ali Hassan Al Shaiba, Executive Director of tourism and Marketing for Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT) says that, provided the stringent quarantine and testing regime allows the event to pass without any of the 2,500 people locked into the zone falling ill, the city will seek to expand the ‘safety bubble’ model to include spectators.

Al Shaiba told SportBusiness “the idea is first to test the capability from an operational point of view. Can we handle it with the staff, with the athletes to be with no fans? And then we will learn from this, and we will decide later if we can do it with a limited number of fans, or restricted number of fans, to be able to attend the next event in the bubble.”

The Government of Abu Dhabi is aiming for the hosting of the UFC ‘fight island’ concept to demonstrate its ability to stage international sporting events and backs a hosting strategy that identifies desirable tourist groups and then stage sporting events to attract them. The decision to expand a pre-existing hosting agreement for one UFC event a year into the new four-fight deal is consistent with a strategy to target millennials and younger audiences.

Al Shaiba explained “today we are looking for adventure seekers, sports seekers, we are also looking for luxury travellers.”

Although Abu Dhabi is not currently open to international visitors, Al Shaiba says DCT will use the event to promote itself as a safe pair of hands for sports rights-holders and to promote tourism to the region in the longer term, adding “as an international sports event watched by many viewers worldwide, we believe that Fight Island will help position Abu Dhabi at the forefront of the revival of international sport in 2020.”

Promotion of the event to date has included the construction of a training octagon on one of Yas Island’s beaches as a promotional exercise while the Emirate is also seeking to highlight its hotel facilities, golf course and amenities at the Yas Marina motoracing circuit, home to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

To gauge the success of the event, DCT has an in-house team that will monitor online and offline media exposure, gathering data from social media, together with information gleaned by UFC and its broadcast partners.

Figures from DCT suggest the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix remains the city’s biggest draw, attracting an estimated 135,000 attendees, 80,000 of whom were foreign visitors, last year. Overall, DCT estimates the event has attracted over 1.4 million visitors to the capital over the 11 years the race has been held there.

Tourism to Abu Dhabi grew 10.5% between 2018 and 2019, but Al Shaiba thinks it will be some time before visitor numbers bounce back from the COVID-19 lockdown.

He concludes “today, we are seeing ourselves in a recovery phase where we are setting plans with all stakeholders (as to) how to return back and promote Abu Dhabi as a destination of choice.

“I think things are getting much better than the beginning of the pandemic, but we won’t get back to the same (visitor) numbers (seen) 2019 very fast. It will take another two years to reach that number.”

For more information on Yas Island go to yasisland.ae/

Images: Abu Dhabi's Flash Forum (top), entry to the venue (middle) and the UFC training octagon on Yas Beach i(below).