‘We Should Be Stepping Over Emmys’

The UFC’s production team did such a great job with Riyadh Season Noche UFC that Dana White believes they’re a lock for an Sports Emmy or three.

UFC 306 at the Sphere was such a resounding success that Dana White believes his team is a shoe-in for an Emmy.

The 76th annual Emmy Awards just went down from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, but we won’t have to wait until next September to see if Riyadh Season Noche UFC will win any statues. Nominations for the Sports Emmy Awards come out in April 2025, with winners will be revealed in May.

You better believe White will be stumping hard for his team to be recognized for their hard work last weekend.

“It should [win an Emmy],” he said at the UFC 306 post-fight press conference. “Listen, I talked a lot of s— for a lot of years about boxing and Showtime. I always like to push the envelope and make it better. When new technology comes out, we try to raise the bar because I think it should be. What these guys pulled off, we should be stepping over Emmys at the office.”

There’s two possible categories we could see UFC 306 winning: Outstanding Live Special and Outstanding Digital Innovation. And White promised he’d be making special programming about the event, which would put them in Outstanding Feature, Outstanding Documentary, and Outstanding Edited Event Coverage contention.

“Literally, the whole thing was seamless,” he said of the production. “It went perfect. We didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse. That was our big, you know, worry coming in here, but they nailed it. The team absolutely nailed it.”

“I mean, like I told you guys before, I saw it first when it was like 50% resolution. Then I was in here the other day for Thursday, it was our first full rehearsal. Thursday was our first full rehearsal for that show, so the team killed it. It was absolutely amazing.”

The whole thing was perfect … except for one embarrassing moment when boxing great Terence Crawford was put up on the big screens and misidentified as Kendrick Lamar.

“Yeah, that was pretty bad,” White said with a laugh. “He did kind of look like Kendrick Lamar, though, let’s not f—k around … So, when I said we had a flawless production tonight, I take that back.”