UFC 219 is estimated at doing between 340,000 to 380,000 buys according to Dave Meltzer writing for MMA Fighting. It would make it the third-highest selling PPV of 2017.
The event featured Cris Cyborg taking on Holly Holm. It’s the first event featuring a women’s bout not including Ronda Rousey that has eclipsed 200,000 buys. Last February, Holm and Germaine de Randamie drew 200,000 buys and Amanda Nunes-Valentina Schevchenko drew 100,000 buys. Technically, UFC 200 featured Miesha Tate and Nunes, which drew over 1 million buys, but the real draw was Brock Lesnar’s return against Mark Hunt and a match between Daniel Cormier and Anderson Silva.
Cyborg sent a tweet hinting at the event’s success.
Early indicators for #ufc219 my 1st ppv as a main event have it as the 3rd most purchased @ufc event of 2017 thank you #Cyborgnation pic.twitter.com/bCzn91r9ff
— #CyborgNation (@criscyborg) January 8, 2018
The UFC 219 Prelims drew 949,000 viewers on FS1 and had over 1 million google searches for UFC 219 on the Saturday of the event. These indicators were signs that the event would do well.
Payout Perspective:
While 340-380K PPV buys does not seem like a success, it is if you consider that those fighters that receive PPV upside kick in starting at 200K PPV buys. So, if fighters did have points above 200K buys, this would be a great result for them. The mid-300s is not what you would think of a successful PPV but if you were to compare it over the years to other cards without GSP, McGregor, Lesnar, Rousey or Jones-Cormier, it has to be a positive.
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