Trump’s UFC fights viewership was 117 million short of Dana White’s Super Bowl-level prediction

Viewership for President Donald Trump’s birthday “UFC Freedom 250” event at the White House was 117 million short of the seismic prediction made by Dana White.

White, UFC’s president, had bullishly predicted “Super Bowl-type numbers” for the fight, streamed live on Paramount+, but figures showed the spectacle averaged 8.2 million viewers—way off the 124.9 million average who tuned in for February’s Super Bowl LX on NBC.

Florida State Sen. Joe Gruters, chair of the Republican National Committee, also falsely claimed that more people tuned in to watch the Trump event than the Super Bowl.

“Joe Gruters was only off by 117.4 million,” quipped NBC Sports’ Mike Florio.

Still, the event was the largest exclusive live event ever for Paramount+, according to the company. The show reached a total of 17 million viewers, which represents the number of people who watched for at least a minute during any point in the broadcast, per Variety.

At the unprecedented event on the South Lawn, seven UFC fights played out to celebrate 250 years of the United States, in addition to marking Trump’s 80th birthday.

Trump sat cageside with White, a good friend of his, as the night ended with Justin Gaethje securing an upset stoppage win over Ilia Topuria to become lightweight champion. In the co-main event, Ciryl Gane stopped Alex Pereira to win the interim heavyweight title, although the finish was controversial due to Gane’s allegedly illegal strikes.

In fact, all seven bouts ended with stoppages, as American star Sean O’Malley joined compatriots Josh Hokit and Bo Nickal in picking up victories – although Hokit and Nickal’s wins came at the expense of other US fighters.

In January, Paramount+ took over as the UFC’s main broadcast partner, as the mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion moved from a pay-per-view model to a subscriber-based one.

“Since the beginning of the year, 16m subscriber households have watched more than 180m hours of UFC programming on Paramount+,” read a press release on Thursday, “delivering viewership more than 20x the average pay-per-view event over the past two years.

“The inaugural numbered event, UFC 324 on 24 January, broke the record at the time for the largest exclusive live event on Paramount+ with 5m average viewers and 7m households in the US and Latin America, according to Adobe Analytics.” Nielsen was also used to verify figures.

“UFC Freedom 250 [at the White House] was the 6th marquee event in a seven-year deal between UFC and Paramount+ that includes 13 Numbered Events and 30 Fight Nights in the US and Latin America for 2026, with select offerings in Australia. UFC and Paramount+ also recently announced the expansion of UFC Numbered Event Main Card rights to Canada beginning in 2027.”