Olympia President Dan Solomon unearthed some major plans for the organization moving forward. On March 17, 2025, he teased future venues for Mr. Olympia, hinting at a possible return to Madison Square Garden. In addition to discussing the Olympia’s growth, he explained why taller athletes rarely win the coveted Sandow trophy.
Joe Weider’s 2024 Mr. Olympia Fitness and Performance Weekend delivered in its home of Las Vegas, Nevada. 11 bodybuilding divisions squared off for historic cash prizes and the sport’s most wanted titles. In the headliner, Samson Dauda dethroned Derek Lunsford to become the 19th athlete to win the Open Mr. Olympia.
While the Olympia will remain in Las Vegas this year, company executives are considering a change of scenery soon. In 1998, the Olympia was held at the iconic Madison Square Garden, a venue Dan Solomon believes could be a great fit for the event in the near future.
Dan Solomon Says Taller Athletes ‘Seldom’ Win Mr. Olympia, Wants to Use Same Venues as UFC and WWE
In a recent YouTube video, Solomon touched on Mr. Olympia’s growth and global expansion.
Level Up Your Fitness: Join our 💪 strong community in Fitness Volt Newsletter. Get daily inspiration, expert-backed workouts, nutrition tips, the latest in strength sports, and the support you need to reach your goals. Subscribe for free!
“Since those [Pumping Iron] days, the Olympia has grown into a global showcase of all things fitness, not just a bodybuilding contest. So it brings together the ecosystem of fitness and bodybuilding and all kinds of physical disciplines and it culminates every year in Las Vegas, and it’s a big event. We bring a ton of people to the city.”
“The city of Las Vegas which of course, hosts the biggest events in the world, gave us the keys to the city last year for the work we’ve done to connect the fitness community with Las Vegas and we were really proud of that. It’s growing a lot.”
Although taller athletes serve as ideal ambassadors for the sport, Solomon emphasized that they rarely win the Mr. Olympia title.
“They are not common. The tall big [bodybuilders], right, it’s funny because those guys who look that way seldom become Mr. Olympia because there is certain advantages to being more compact. It’s easier to build a smaller physique.”
However, he credited Dauda for achieving the improbable.
“Our current champion, Samson Dauda, is a big guy. But it’s a unique thing to get a guy who is around 6 feet tall to carry himself and to become Mr. Olympia. A lot of those times, those guys are the best spokespeople for the sport as well,” he explained.
Solomon aims to bring the Mr. Olympia to venues used by the UFC or WWE, hinting at a potential return to Madison Square Garden.
“I want to start going towards the kind of venues that WWE uses, that UFC might use [like Madison Square Garden]. Major events, 20, 40, 50-thousand seats, that’s a big thing. And then there’s also connecting with more prominent companies.”
As for growing the organization, he expressed interest in working with bigger companies to make the sport more mainstream.
“We got to get to a place where bigger companies, companies that aren’t maybe natural to us in this world, understand that we are an audience of people want to live the best possible life and want to live a different kind of lifestyle and have higher expectations and aspirations for ourselves.
So I’d like to see other major companies who might not have looked at fitness and bodybuilding on their annual market planograms if you will, I want them to get behind and get involved with what we’re doing.”
While the 2025 Mr. Olympia will remain in Las Vegas, Dan Solomon believes significant changes are on the horizon. For now, he is focused on ensuring the ‘Super Bowl of Bodybuilding’ remains unforgettable when it returns from October 9-12 this year.
Watch the full video from the Ross Mandell YouTube channel below:
You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and
YouTube for even more content.
