President Donald Trump announced on Monday that the UFC will construct a 4,500-seat venue ahead of the mixed martial arts cage match in front of the White House that will take place this summer.
The UFC Freedom 250 fight on the White House’s South Lawn will be one event among many that the Trump administration and outside organizations are putting on to mark the U.S. semiquincentennial.
Trump is incorporating the athletic sphere into efforts to mark the United States’s 250th birthday throughout 2026. Aside from the UFC fight, Americans have the rare opportunity to attend a free IndyCar race on the National Mall in August and participate in the “unprecedented” four-day “Patriot Games” high school competition in Washington, D.C., in the fall.
When is the UFC fight?
The UFC will host its first-ever fight at the White House on Sunday, June 14. The event will take place at 8 p.m., with Trump in attendance.
The cage fight also coincides with Trump’s 80th birthday.
Who is on the White House card?
There is a seven-fight lineup for the mixed martial arts event. The seventh was an unexpected addition, joining the card due to Trump’s intervention.
On Saturday, Derrick Lewis was added at Trump’s request. Lewis, who holds the UFC record for most victories by knockout, will face Josh Hokit. UFC CEO Dana White, a close friend of Trump, recounted the story behind Lewis’s inclusion on Saturday.
“The president said to me, ‘Why is Derrick Lewis not on the White House card?’ I said, ‘I’ll be back in five minutes,’” White said. “I went and called Derrick Lewis, said the president wants to know why you’re not on the White House card. And Derrick Lewis said, ‘Politics. Politics kept me off the White House card.’”
“And I said, ‘Do you want to fight on the card?’” White recounted. “And he said, ‘I absolutely want to fight on the card. Tell the president, ‘Thank you.’”
White said not to expect further additions to the card ahead of June 14. “Unless [Trump] calls me and tells me to do something else, there will be no more fights added to the card,” White said.
UFC announced over the weekend that Crypto.com, the event’s major sponsor, is giving fighters “the biggest bonus in UFC history,” with a pool of $1 million on the line.
UFC announced its full fight card in March. The main event will be Justin Gaethje vs. Ilia Topuria in a lightweight championship unification bout. Alex Pereira will face Ciryl Gane for the heavyweight championship. Sean O’Malley, Michael Chandler, Bo Nickal, and Steve Garcia are among the other fighters on the card.
What will the event be like?
Tens of thousands are expected to attend the fight. While the main venue will have 4,500 seats, thousands more will be able to watch the fight from large screens set up on the Ellipse, an open area near the White House often used for large gatherings.
“In the back at the Ellipse, we’re going to have 100,000, maybe 50 to 100,000 people, I guess,” Trump said this week. “They’re building tremendous stages, and we’re going to have massive screens of the fight. It’s a very popular sport.”
At the Ellipse, the Grammy-winning Zac Brown Band will bring live music to attendees watching the cage match. The band will take the stage at 9:30 p.m.
“I’ve been involved in a lot of big events; I have never had an event that has had more interest than the UFC fight we have right at the front door,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office.
What has Dana White said about the fight?
White said in March that organizers will hand out 85,000 free tickets to the public. The UFC CEO confirmed Tuesday that no taxpayer money is going into staging the event, after TKO Group Holdings President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro said in February that the UFC would likely spend around $60 million to hold the event at a loss.
“We’re basically going to take over D.C. that whole week with lots of different things for fight fans,” White told CBS. “Then, obviously a one-of-one event to be able to have it at the White House. Fighters will actually walk from the Oval Office to the octagon.”
This week, White said the event marked an opportunity for Americans to come together and celebrate the country.
“One of the myths that I would like to crush is I don’t care if you’re far right, far left, right down the middle, wherever you sit politically, because everybody sits somewhere politically these days,” he said Tuesday on The Pat McAfee Show. “This isn’t about politics.”
“This is about the United States, what this country is about, how it was built, where we all came from,” he added. “If you love America, you’re going to love this event … We just happen to be on the White House lawn, and the president of the United States will be there.”
Are there any security concerns?
With the president in attendance, security will be tight. Chandler, one of the fighters, said in March that organizers are “living, breathing, trying to figure out how this event is going to be laid out.”
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“Obviously, when you think about throwing in one new type of event, which the UFC loves to do, a type of fight that has never happened before … now, you couple it with the extra layers of the added security of actually fighting on the White House lawn, the logistics are going to be a lot,” Chandler said during a Fox News interview.
“Security is going to be a massive issue because, at the end of the day, the Secret Service’s job is to protect the president,” White told The Herd with Colin Cowherd in September.