A home game for the Secret Service: What does security look like for UFC Freedom 250 on the White House lawn?

Here are a couple things we know for sure. On Sunday, the President of the United States will sit out on the White House lawn and watch a UFC event that’s been in the works for nearly a year, ever since he first suggested it late last summer. The fists will fly. The blood will probably flow. And through it all Donald Trump will be sitting there, outdoors, possibly for several hours.

He will do this just seven weeks after the attempted attack at the White House correspondents’ dinner in April. He will do it while the United States is still engaged in military action against Iran. He will do it just six days after his journey to an NBA Finals game at Madison Square Garden caused whole sections of Midtown Manhattan to be essentially shut down, with attendees at the game subject to intense security screenings that clogged the streets for blocks.

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With all that in mind it seems reasonable to wonder, just how safe is UFC Freedom 250 for all concerned, from Trump to the fighters themselves?

After all, a lengthy outdoor event featuring the U.S. President and likely some members of his cabinet could be a prime target for those wishing to harm this administration. It would also seem to carry different risks than Trump’s many appearances at UFC events held in enclosed arenas with more tightly controlled environments.

According to Charles Marino, a former Supervisory Special Agent in the United States Secret Service who now serves as CEO of the security company Sentinel, the potential risks at an event like this are plentiful. From drones to armed intruders to bombs and chemical or biological agents, every possible method of attack must be considered.

But the biggest thing the Secret Service and other government agencies may have going for them here, according to Marino, is the fact that the event is taking place at the White House, making it something of a home game for those tasked with protecting the president.

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“Whenever the Secret Service can get a home-field advantage, they’ll take it all day long,” Marino says. “For them, the more they can host these types of events in the Capitol region, especially at the White House, the better. The airspace over the White House is the most tightly controlled airspace in the country.”

That’s not to say there won’t be certain apprehensions about having the president and other VIPs exposed at an outdoor location for an extended period of time at an event that’s been well-publicized in advance. According to multiple security experts who spoke to Uncrowned, flying drones represent one of the biggest potential concerns, just as they are for outdoor matches at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

According to Vincent Martinez, a retired non-commissioned officer in the U.S. special forces who now works with security firm ZeroEyes, there’s a wide spectrum of drone threats to be considered. They range from “nuisance drones” piloted by overly curious individuals who may intend no real harm, all the way up to more sophisticated weaponized drones that could be used in massive waves as part of a coordinated attack.

“The disruptive drone threat is significant, but I’d put it at the bottom tier of UAS [uncrewed aircraft systems] threats,” Martinez says. “That’s more of an egocentric individual who says, ‘I want to disrupt this. Look at what I did.’ … The much larger concern is drone platforms that have been augmented and fitted with some capability or payload.”

For instance, Martinez points to a recent incident in New Jersey that involved the theft of 15 agricultural drones, each equipped with 40-gallon tanks. The drones were later recovered, but the potential damage that could be done by those or other similar drones falling into the wrong hands is a major concern.

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“If you can imagine a large tank of chemicals, maybe ricin or some biological agent, being dispersed over a wide area, that’s serious,” Martinez says. “The fact that [the Department of Homeland Security] and other law enforcement assets were able to recover those is a huge bonus, but I revert to the bigger question of who are the entities that are seeking these out? Who’s actually interested in employing these? Those are all the threats that come into play. It’s not hard to weaponize a drone, contrary to what a lot of manufacturers claim. It’s actually relatively simple. It’s being done on a daily basis in Ukraine, the Middle East, even domestically by novices or those just seeking a challenge.”

ufcBut drones will also be part of the security arsenal for the Secret Service and other agencies, Martinez notes. Some will likely be equipped with facial recognition technology for spotting specific threats, while others could be used to counter any non-approved drones while tracking the signal to find the drone operator.

All these threats are already a prime concern for this year’s World Cup, says Ron Hawkins, senior director of industry relations for the Security Industry Association. But what complicates matters for Sunday’s event, he notes, is the multiple different government agencies who will be coordinating security at both the White House and the UFC watch party for fans at The Ellipse, a 52-acre park located just south of the White House grounds.

Those two events combine the risks associated with high-value targets such as government officials, but also those that come along with large groups.

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“That puts it on a level with a Super Bowl or World Cup, maybe even higher,” Hawkins says. “You’re looking at maybe 85,000 or 90,000 people in the vicinity of the White House, with other national leaders. … You’re controlling access. You’re surveilling and maintaining situational awareness and communicating threats. In today’s technological world, underlying all that is going to be the network, the cyber connections. If cyber can be breached, then physical can be breached. And if physical can be breached, then cyber can be breached.”

As with any event involving the president, there’s also the chance of large-scale protests complicating the security picture. Michael McCann, a 23-year veteran of the New York Police Department with experience coordinating multiple protection operations for foreign dignitaries, points to the extended barriers erected in a wide perimeter around Madison Square Garden ahead of President Trump’s visit to the arena earlier this week. Measures like that will almost certainly be in place Sunday, he says, since much of the focus will be on controlling who has access on or near the grounds.

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“The most stressful part of this kind of event is really the outside, the outer perimeter,” says McCann, now the vice president of McCann Protective Services. “Because unfortunately, no matter which political party is doing the protesting, you’ll have large numbers and groups trying to infiltrate and get into the site. At [Madison Square Garden], the Secret Service deployed what’s called anti-scaling fencing around the Garden, which we’ve never really used before. But it’s because they’ve had these huge groups of people outside the Garden for these games, and you’d expect something similar [at the UFC event].”

But for Marino, this highlights another big difference between having this event at the White House and having Trump attend a more traditional sports venue as a visiting guest. Not only does it give an added advantage to the Secret Service, which knows the White House grounds better than any other place on Earth, he says, it also limits the disruption to others.

“Something like this is generally less inconvenient to the public,” Marino says. “In New York, they had to cancel watch parties outside because of the extended perimeter. You had expansive motorcade routes getting to and from the venue, which closed down streets and snarled traffic. So there are a lot of positive points to this that I think people should keep in mind.”

At the same time, he points out, Washington residents who are looking to avoid a crowd might want to steer clear of the area on Sunday. Between the White House event and the watch party at The Ellipse, there will be a lot of people — and a lot of security measures to navigate.