As something of a professional Republican, April Melton has attended her fair share of ho-hum events in the nation’s capital. But there’s one coming up that the chair of the Black Hawk County, Iowa, GOP is dying to see up close: an Ultimate Fighting Championship extravaganza on the South Lawn of the White House next month.

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“How do we get tickets? Can you get me tickets?” Melton said, her eyes lighting up. She was waiting for Vice President JD Vance to arrive at a midterm campaign rally in Des Moines on Tuesday. “I want to go!”

So does nearly everyone else in the heavily overlapping worlds of President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement and mixed martial arts fandom.

In trademark fashion, the president created insatiable demand for an event — held in conjunction with his 80th birthday on June 14 and a monthslong celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary — with a limited supply of tickets. Trump is handpicking most of the 4,000-plus spectators lucky enough, cunning enough or rich enough to score a seat on the South Lawn.

“I’m going to make a lot of enemies because it’s impossible to get everyone tickets,” the president said Friday in a telephone interview with NBC News.

Technically, all of the tickets are free, and the UFC is footing the bill for the event. But sponsorship packages that include ringside seats have been selling for $1 million or more, according to a Republican lobbyist directly familiar with the process.One reportput the figure at $1.5 million.

The White House directed inquiries about sponsorships to the UFC, which reiterated that it is not selling tickets to the event but did not comment on where the sponsorship money was going.

Onan earnings callin May, Mark Shapiro, president and chief operating officer of UFC’s parent company, TKO Holdings, said that the company expects to lose as much as $30 million on the matches and other festivities in Washington.

The cost hasn’t dampened enthusiasm for the fights in the top ranks of the UFC league, and demand for the elite passes to the South Lawn is through the roof.

Source: Drudge Report