Earnings Reports Indicate McGregor vs Cerrone Did Around 1 Million Buys
Conor McGregor holds the record for most PPV buys in MMA history. Now he also holds the records for most buys on a streaming service, too.
McGregor made his return to action at UFC 246, competing for the first time in over a year. Moreover, this bout with Donald Cerrone was the first time he competed under the ESPN era. Therefore there were questions about how much the event would sell, especially considering the changes to the UFC’s PPV model.
However, according to a quarterly report from Disney CEO Robert Iger, it seems McGregor still did well. Not only did he explain that the subscription numbers for ESPN+ increased by 500,000 leading up to UFC 246, but the event did around 1 million buys.
“We’ve been especially happy with a number of partnerships,” Iger said. “PARTICULARLY with the UFC and the recent McGregor-Cerrone fight brought in about 1 million pay-per-view purchases and 0.5 million new subscribers”
What is significant about these numbers is that the McGregor vs Cerrone card exceeded the amount of buys of any other streaming pay-per-views. The closest to it came from DAZN’s Logan Paul vs KSI boxing match, which did just over 800,000 buys. Although it is worth noting that UFC 246 cost about 7x the price of the celebrity boxing match, so that makes the numbers more significant.
Considering how hard it is to come by PPV numbers with this new system, the fact that we get this information about McGregor vs Cerrone is a big deal. Furthermore the information about the subscription numbers increasing is also interesting to see. It would appear that, despite his faults, is still a massive mainstream draw.
