ESPN’s Dan Rafael reports that the Floyd Mayweather-Andre Berto PPV drew between 500-600K PPV buys according to industry sources contacted by Rafael. It is the lowest PPV output by Mayweather under his contract with Showtime.
UPDATED: Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports is reporting that his source says it did “roughly” 400K PPV buys. 145,000 buys come from DirecTV which is always one of the first to report its buys.
PPV industry source on #MayweatherBerto numbers tells me they’re very poor relatively speaking. ‘Being generous is might hit 550,000 buys.’
— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) September 16, 2015
The first disclaimer is that these are estimates from industry sources. Showtime’s Steven Espinoza proclaimed that it would never reveal actual PPV numbers after Maidana I. Of course, Espinoza added the proviso that it would reveal the PPV numbers if it set a record. For instance, Mayweather-Pacquiao.
550,000 PPV buys is not bad….for a UFC PPV but when it comes to Floyd Mayweather, it is a disappointment. It’s the last fight on his Showtime contract and we’ll see if he will actual retire.
Payout Perspective:
With the start of college football season and five boxing events on various networks starting the Sunday prior to the PPV fight, one might see why the PPV buy rate was so low. Moreover, many casual fans were not impressed with Mayweather’s last fight against Manny Pacquiao – a fight that cost many $100 to watch. The casual viewer probably did not want to spend another $75 to watch it again. With no real ethnic audience to draw upon and Mayweather’s fighting style, the buy rate (if accurate) seems about right.
No surprise to the low buy rate.
Mayweather’s previous fight sure didn’t inspire too many fans beyond the hardcores to watch the next fight.
I think i said 500k
Difference is that Rafael has credibility and is unbiased while Espinoza has been called out in the past for exaggerating ppv numbers and revenues.
Yes, for a Mayweather PPV this is pretty low… remember those crazy 1.6M predictions? This thing would have been lucky to pull half of that, yet it did even worse–terrible opponent that nobody cared about, very tamed production for his supposedly ‘last’ fight plus many fans feeling cheated from the last fight–all of those things surely contributed to this low number. I doubt he’ll stay retired, he probably just wanted to finish his contract and he’ll be back just like the last time he ‘retired’.
It wont be his last one.
Mayweathers gonna fight either Pacquiao or Canelo/Cotto winner.
Any rematch against those 3 does 2m+ ppvs.
And UFC 173 drew less than 200,000 PPV buys. UFC 174 was even worse. It barely drew 100,000 buys. Mayweather vs Pacquiao drew almost 5 million PPV buys. When was the last time the UFC sold this much?
If you’re going to look at the overall sales and not cherry pick your seasons, the UFC can barely keep up with other companies. Mayweather alone drew this year about 10 million PPV sales. And the year ain’t over yet. How much did the UFC sell overall this year?
If it weren’t for its hype machine and fanboys, the UFC wouldn’t even be on the radar.
That 1.6m figure was thrown out there by Darren Rovell. That just goes to show you the credibility of that individual. It isn’t the first absurd prediction or analysis he’s given on the subject and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
It is pretty obvious that he is staying retired. Watch how he ended his fight. He fell to his knees and reacted like he knew his career was over. He’s pushing 40 and wants to make 100% sure he retires undefeated. The reason why he fought Berto here was because he didn’t want to take a risk if he didn’t have to, in order to finish undefeated.
What everyone expected, the fight had no buzz and nobody cared.
When he comes back next year it will have to be vs a name, Canelo, Cotto rematches, Khan, GGG, Manny rematch.
Has to be one of them cause if he thinks he can come back and fight someone like Berto he’s not coming close to a million buys.
Everyone knew the numbers would be bad because the fight was a soft touch. put him in there with danny garcia and it would have done 1 million easy. UFC 187 had cormier and Weidman in it two stars in there prime and it did 375k ppv buys with good opponents. now thats very concerning. Cotto vs Canelo will do well. over 1 million
187 lost its main star and was in same month as Floyd/Manny PPv which did 4.5 million buys at 100 bucks a pop.
FB, Cotto-Canelo will not do well over 1m.
Also, 187 may have been low, but you seem to be overlooking the fact that the UFC will do 7 ppvs of 600k or more, 4 will do over 825k and we are probably looking at 2 over 1m- one of which could hit 2m. The UFC tore it up this year in terms of ppv.
Nothing is more concerning for an industry that one which loses by far its biggest star. Boxing will no longer have Mayweather fighting. There is going to be a massive drop off in ppv buys going forward. Pacquaio also only has 1 fight left. Which means, the sport will be done with its only big ppv draws over the past 7 years very shortly. That should draw much more concern than the UFC’s situation which seems to be having their biggest year literally ever.
Are you backing out of our bet?? Seems like it. Pretty cowardly.
“And UFC 173 drew less than 200,000 PPV buys. UFC 174 was even worse. It barely drew 100,000 buys. Mayweather vs Pacquiao drew almost 5 million PPV buys. When was the last time the UFC sold this much?
If you’re going to look at the overall sales and not cherry pick your seasons, the UFC can barely keep up with other companies. Mayweather alone drew this year about 10 million PPV sales. And the year ain’t over yet. How much did the UFC sell overall this year?
If it weren’t for its hype machine and fanboys, the UFC wouldn’t even be on the radar.”
I can’t think of anything more connected to cherry picking numbers than comparing Demetrious Johnson ppvs to Floyd Mayweather fights.
Also, you exaggerate how much the Mayweather fight did and ask when was the last time the UFC did this much. Well, they are going to do more ppv buys/revenue this year than boxing will. They already have more buys as of now with their two biggest fights coming up- they are already at 5m. Also, please explain to me how Mayweather drew 10m ppv buys. That is a number of complete fabrication.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-boxing-pbc-haymon-arum-de-la-hoya-20150917-story.html
Looks like the books are going to open up on PBC.
UFC fanboys always try to change the numbers when they don’t like them.
It’s a matter of fact that Mayweather’s fights have drawn almost 10 million PPV buys this year. The UFC is a joke by comparison. No wonder it robs its fighters and needs to over-advertise its events to sell. If it were as honest as WSOF and Bellator and had fewer fanboys to buy into its BS, the UFC would probably go bankrupt.
UfC only has 1 ppv over 825k this year.
Rousey-Holm i have a feelin will do 700k while Aldo-McGreg probably does the same.
Buzz went away for those two. UFC had a little steam a few months back but they cooled off.
Mayweather has 5m ppvs sold this year. A record that will never be matched.
Funniest thing is this Not Convinced dude says UFC fanboys always try to change numbers when they dont like them.
Then he goes on to say Floyd PPV have drawn almost 10 mill buys this year when the real number is 5 mill.
So he complains UFC fanboys change numbers then he goes on to double Floyds buys this year. You cant make this shit up.
And of course the Greatest is talking shit, Ronda nad 194 both do a million buys.
But you are right Floyd has 5 mill buys this year, a record that will never be matched.
Wont be doing that next year, meanwhile UFC 200, Ronda, McGregor, Anderson and Jones back, UFC keeps rolling.
“UFC fanboys always try to change the numbers when they don’t like them.
It’s a matter of fact that Mayweather’s fights have drawn almost 10 million PPV buys this year. The UFC is a joke by comparison. No wonder it robs its fighters and needs to over-advertise its events to sell. If it were as honest as WSOF and Bellator and had fewer fanboys to buy into its BS, the UFC would probably go bankrupt.”
This is completely delusional. Even the inflated numbers that May-Pac released were only 4.4m and the Berto fight did at most 550k. That’s less than 5m buys. Boxing fanboy’s math is whatever the exaggerated number that is released x2.
Okay, so the UFC isn’t comparable, yet they did more buys this year than the entire sport of boxing. Laughable.
“UfC only has 1 ppv over 825k this year.
Rousey-Holm i have a feelin will do 700k while Aldo-McGreg probably does the same.
Buzz went away for those two. UFC had a little steam a few months back but they cooled off.
Mayweather has 5m ppvs sold this year. A record that will never be matched.”
By the end of the year, the UFC will have 4 ppvs over 800k buys, 3 over 900k. Boxing will have only 2 over 800k buys.
Rousey-Holm is going to be big, your predictions are never correct.
Rousey McGregor could hit 2m buys and will be the biggest fight in the history of the company most likely.
Mayweather never hit 5m. You listen to boxing promoters too much.