Vancouver Seeing Depressed Ticket Prices For Saturday's UFC 131

Rogers Arena on Saturday will host UFC 131 and the “combination of the Canucks' run to the Stanley Cup Final, the absence of original headliner Brock Lesnar and the lack of a major Canadian presence on the card has depressed ticket prices in the week before fight night,” according to Matthew Black of the VANCOUVER SUN. StubHub Head of Communications Glenn Lehrman said, "It's certainly not typical, this is one of the lowest priced UFC events." He said that Friday night's Game Five of the Bruins-Canucks series “cannibalized both ticket sales and interest in the event.” Lehrman estimated the average ticket price for UFC 131 at C$177, and that figure “could drop even further in the hours before the event with many tickets still available through both official and re-sale sites.” StubHub as of Tuesday afternoon “had more than 1,200 tickets available for the event.” Ticketmaster at the same point “had seats available at every price level including floor seats as close as the sixth row” (VANCOUVER SUN, 6/8). ESPN.com’s Chad Dundas wrote “even as the rest of the fight-frenzied Canadian market warms to the boiling point” for MMA, Vancouver “remains weirdly standoffish.” Dundas: “You could argue that leading up to UFC 115 in June '10 and Saturday’s UFC 131 that Vancouver has put on a tour de force performance of how not to be an attractive and accommodating host for live MMA shows.” After first "appearing to try to price the UFC out of town with steep insurance fees prior to UFC 115," the city has asked the company to "pay for extra police patrols outside Rogers Arena during this weekend’s pay-per-view card." UFC said “thanks, but no thanks” to paying for more police. UFC Dir of Canadian Operations Tom Wright said that the company’s “relationship with Vancouver is getting better and the promotion remains committed to staging future shows in British Columbia” (ESPN.com, 6/7).