Historic UFC card gets top billing from ESPN and SportsCenter
The opening bell for ESPN’s live coverage of UFC 168 Saturday night in Las Vegas began this morning, about 36 hours before middleweight champ Chris Weidman meets former belt-holder Anderson Silva at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas (10 p.m. ET, Saturday, pay-per-view).
On-site for SportsCenter’s coverage is anchor Todd Grisham, analyst Gilbert Melendez and ESPN Insider Brett Okamoto, heading a full crew providing blanket coverage of the much-anticipated rematch – Weidman took the title from Silva at July’s UFC 162. Included in the weekend of UFC reporting and storytelling is a takeover of the @SportsCenter Twitter and Instagram feeds by UFC president Dana White, being billed as #DanaCenter.
“It’s great to be a part of our coverage in Vegas — this is what SportsCenter is all about, providing fans smart coverage of a major sporting event,” said Senior Coordinating Producer Glenn Jacobs, a UFC fan familiar with the MMA landscape through his prior work on ESPN2’s MMA Live. “The visual demonstrations Gilbert has done, for example, are interesting and informative. I think fans will really enjoy what we’re doing out here.”
What Jacobs and the team on-site are doing are live reports for today’s 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. SportsCenters, and a live segment on the 6 p.m. show previewing SportsCenter’s live weigh-in coverage at 7:15 p.m., which will include 1-on-1 interviews with Weidman (10-0 mixed martial arts, 6-0 UFC), Silva (33-5, 16-1) and Ronda Rousey (7-0, 1-0) and Miesha Tate (13-4, 0-1) who meet in the co-feature. Pieces for other SportsCenters will also be produced, along with segments for MMA Live and ESPN’s digital platforms.
MMA veteran Jacobs is joined in Vegas by UFC rookie – but ESPN veteran – Andrea Pelkey, who is responsible for producing the content.
“This is my first UFC assignment, and as a fan of sports, this fight card is filled with amazing athletes I can’t wait to show to our SportsCenter fans,” Pelkey said. “We will be octagon-side for live pre- and post-fight coverage, which will include winners of the main and co-main events on our set.
“The access the UFC is allowing us will give our audience an insider’s view of an historic card with a ton of story lines,” she said. “As for the #DanaCenter tie-in, you can’t really get closer to the action then to be with the UFC President, can you?”