UFC 193 is on track to be the second-largest PPV in company history according to Lorenzo Fertitta. In speaking with Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports Fertitta indicated that it was currently tracking third but would finish behind only UFC 100.
UFC 100 drew 1.6 million viewers in July 2009. Fertitta confirmed that UFC 193 sold in “excess of one million on pay-per-view.” It appears that early PPV estimates have it around 1M-1.2M buys per Dave Meltzer.
UFC 189 was originally reported at hitting 1 million PPV buys but that estimate was scaled back to 825,000. The last time that a UFC PPV hit 1 million PPV buys was UFC 168 which featured Weidman-Silva II and Tate-Rousey II (via MMA Payout Blue Book).
Ronda Rousey’s last PPV fight at UFC 190 drew 900,000 viewers.
Notably, UFC 193 Google related searches hit 9 million and was the most search topic on Saturday and Sunday. It should be noted that the search experienced a slight dip on Friday but obviously surged ahead for Saturday.
In comparison, Mayweather-Pacquiao hit about 12 million google searches the weekend of their fight this past May.
Also to consider, UFC 193 Prelims on FS1 drew 1,394,000 viewers. It was the most-watched Prelim event on FS1 with Ronda Rousey on the PPV main event.
Payout Perspective:
It’s clear that if these indicators are correct, UFC will have its best PPV year to date with UFC 194 probably adding to a huge year of PPV business for the company. It shows the attraction of Ronda Rousey. One should expect that a rematch will garner big PPV numbers again. The question will be whether Holly Holm can maintain the PPV momentum of Rousey.
MMAtruth says
Wow big numbers for Rousey. So Rousey will be responsible for 40-50% of the UFCs PPV this year, who would’ve thought!
The UFC will be playing with fire if they put her right back in there with HH.
Chris says
Wont be biggest PPV total, think they are around 6.5 mill right now if this event does in 1.2 mill range.
But with Tv deals going up each year Fox and Globo this will def be the best year the UFC has ever had in revenue.
Had a bad 2014 with injuries and fights falling through and trolls said mma was dead and they bounced right back with their best year ever.
Tops E says
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2015/11/20/9768242/holly-holm-floyd-mayweather-la-clippers-photo-ufc-boxing-mma-news. Holm should sign with tmt or Haymon as adviser so they can negotiate a better deal from dw hahahahaha
Fight Fan says
How about the numbers from the other ppvs? They hide those.
d says
Hahaha. The trolls are in full effect.
This one must have stung. Boxing is in the gutter and the UFC is having a massive year.
TMT???? Those fighters get paid in pennies. Hahaha. Floyd’s undercard fighters lose money to fight. No one would take one of his deals. Also, Holm has zero leverage because she is not the A fighter Rousey still is.
Fight Fan, how about those other numbers??? They are located at the top of mmapayout’s site under ppv. If you click on the icon there, the numbers will be displayed for you. The UFC had a number of big ppvs this year and the biggest still hasn’t arrived yet with Aldo-McGregor which will be massive.
Funny how no one’s talking about Cotto-Canelo this weekend. Haha.
d says
The UFC hit this one out of the park. Lot’s of boxing fans showing their frustration. Love it.
d says
Fight fan, this will help answer your question:
“It’s clear that if these indicators are correct, UFC will have its best PPV year to date with UFC 194 probably adding to a huge year of PPV business for the company. ”
Haha.
FightBusiness says
if true these are great numbers. never knew rousey was this popular or that anybody even cared about this fight leading up to it. good for them. very surprising.
d says
Fightbusiness, are you planning on honoring our bet?
The Greatest says
Boxing fans are loving this.
A boxer just battered the snot out of the UFCs little darling.
MMA fans are the ones in damage control.
UFC is a suburban white fan sport.
Boxing is a global force.
Canelo-Cotto is bigger than any UFC this year.
Maybe not in Vermont but in NYC no one cares about the UFC. In California, Canelo-Cotto is the biggest fight this year.
Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Japan, The Philippines, all have top fighters on this card, and each country is a hot bed for boxing.
But i guess the UFC has Buffalo Wild Wings. Wooo hooo.
d says
Hahahaha.
The responses from boxing fans are escalating showing how fumed they are that the UFC is exploding this year and boxing is in the toilet.
The Greatest needs his medication, he thinks Holly Holm knocked out Rousey with a punch. Hahahaha.
d says
The real question is, will boxing ever have another 1m buy ppv? Hahaha.
fight fan says
D the ufc still can’t beat its #1 PPV, headlined by a WWE star, At this rate it’ll take them 2O years to beat mayweathers PPV with PAC lol
Am I the only one says
bothered by the fact that these statements are taken at face value?
Do we have any evidence for these numbers other than the claims made by someone who has an obvious interest in hyping his product?
Chris says
They dont hide the numbers, Jason has them listed on this site,
also Jones/DC, Ronda/Bethe, Ronda/Holm, McGregor/Mendes and McGregor/Aldo all will do bigger numbers than Canelo/Cotto.
MMAtruth says
Rousey is doing amazing numbers for the UFC but let’s not kid ourselves. If Rousey disappears the next big guns are McGregor and Jon Jones, after that its slim to none. There might be a Silva or GSP for a silver lining but if Rousey is gone – UFC is doing nowhere near the same PPV. DW is looking for an immediate rematch would be terrible for UFC long term. If Rouseys star dies, so is half the PPV. Its funny tho how RR beats everyone minus Floyd Mayweather in PPV sales. Boxing must love how RR lost this tho.
d says
“D the ufc still can’t beat its #1 PPV, headlined by a WWE star, At this rate it’ll take them 2O years to beat mayweathers PPV with PAC lol”
Not annually. The UFC beats boxing every year in ppv revenue despite how many ppvs boxing banner promotions expand to.
Also, that WWE star had GSP as a co-headliner, it wasn’t only Lesnar selling that card.
I guess they didn’t tell you that at your local Buffalo Wild Wings.
d says
“Rousey is doing amazing numbers for the UFC but let’s not kid ourselves. If Rousey disappears the next big guns are McGregor and Jon Jones, after that its slim to none. There might be a Silva or GSP for a silver lining but if Rousey is gone – UFC is doing nowhere near the same PPV. DW is looking for an immediate rematch would be terrible for UFC long term. If Rouseys star dies, so is half the PPV. Its funny tho how RR beats everyone minus Floyd Mayweather in PPV sales. Boxing must love how RR lost this tho.”
Just boxing fan hate. In reality every time a new UFC star starts to fade(which hasn’t really happened here, this girl lost 1 fight and has plenty ppv left in her). We heard the same thing when Ortiz/Liddell/Couture retired, then came GSP/Silva as big draws. It always happens. As a matter of fact, since Dec. of 2008 when De La Hoya retired, there have been a total of 15 A UFC headlining fighters who have drawn a ppv that went over 500k buys. During that time, the amount of A boxers who have drawn a ppv that went over 500k buys are 2: Mayweather and Pacquaio. Pretty much demolishes the theory that boxing has more star power and has no problem replacing their stars. With both of those two basically done(Pac has 1 fight left), the entire sport of boxing is so desperate for a ppv star if Canelo gets exposed(which will probably happen after he fights someone in their prime that is good), it could mean the end of ppv boxing doing anything significant.
What has happened in the past is that UFC/MMA ppvs have done more buys annually, but usually the top drawing individual fight is boxing, however in 2016, it is very obvious that now, not only do will they easily do more buys, they will also probably have the top 2 or 3 individual ppvs.
Also, Rousey’s last two ppvs both more than doubled Floyd’s last ppv and Rousey will make up around 30-35%% of the UFC’s ppv buys this year, not 50%.
15 UFC fighters who went over 500k buys since De La Hoya retired in ’08
Rousey
McGregor
Silva
GSP
Jones
Weidman
JDS
Jackson
Lesnar
Penn
Liddell
Griffin
Machida
Evans
Couture
d says
“Rousey is doing amazing numbers for the UFC but let’s not kid ourselves. If Rousey disappears the next big guns are McGregor and Jon Jones, after that its slim to none. There might be a Silva or GSP for a silver lining but if Rousey is gone – UFC is doing nowhere near the same PPV. DW is looking for an immediate rematch would be terrible for UFC long term. If Rouseys star dies, so is half the PPV. Its funny tho how RR beats everyone minus Floyd Mayweather in PPV sales. Boxing must love how RR lost this tho.”
Just boxing fan hate. In reality every time a new UFC star starts to fade(which hasn’t really happened here, this girl lost 1 fight and has plenty ppv left in her). We heard the same thing when Ortiz/Liddell/Couture retired, then came GSP/Silva as big draws. It always happens. As a matter of fact, since Dec. of 2008 when De La Hoya retired, there have been a total of 15 A UFC headlining fighters who have drawn a ppv that went over 500k buys. During that time, the amount of A boxers who have drawn a ppv that went over 500k buys are 2: Mayweather and Pacquaio. Pretty much demolishes the theory that boxing has more star power and has no problem replacing their stars. With both of those two basically done(Pac has 1 fight left), the entire sport of boxing is so desperate for a ppv star if Canelo gets exposed(which will probably happen after he fights someone in their prime that is good), it could mean the end of ppv boxing doing anything significant.
What has happened in the past is that UFC/MMA ppvs have done more buys annually, but usually the top drawing individual fight is boxing, however in 2016, it is very obvious that now, not only do will they easily do more buys, they will also probably have the top 2 or 3 individual ppvs.
Also, Rousey’s last two ppvs both more than doubled Floyd’s last ppv and Rousey will make up around 30-35%% of the UFC’s ppv buys this year, not 50%.
15 UFC fighters who went over 500k buys since De La Hoya retired in ’08
Rousey
McGregor
Silva
GSP
Jones
Weidman
JDS
Jackson
Lesnar
Penn
Liddell
Griffin
Machida
Evans
Couture
tops E says
Writing super long essays and so many times is a frustrated ufc fanboy hahahaha….ronda fans have moved on to other girly pursuits hahaha…ufc fanboys are pissed and its all about holm out boxing d once ever ronda….
d says
Haha. Says the guy who has made a career out of ranting on here.
tops E says
Anxious in convincing everybody because he cant convince himself hahaha
d says
1.3 m ppv buys is convincing enough…..hahahaha.
tops E says
Hahaha…point out how long he writes…he makes it short hahaha…self concious
Mmatruth says
D
I agree UFC will overall kill boxing. Whats boxing biggest PPV in 2016 lol?
But Im predicting Rousey will be 40-50% of this years PPV i think you came under.
d says
Rousey is looking like she is going to do about 2.7-2.8m buys this year. The UFC is looking like they could hit 8m this year.
d says
“Am I the only one bothered by the fact that these statements are taken at face value?
Do we have any evidence for these numbers other than the claims made by someone who has an obvious interest in hyping his product?”
Yes, we do have evidence, Dave Meltzer is also confirming this.
What I find interesting though, is that when a boxing promotion makes similar claims, where there literally is no one fact checking them, all the boxing trolls take it at face value.
turd says
let me chime in here, ufc is trouncing boxing in north america, if anyone says other wise they are clowns, and im a boxing fan, been watching it since the 80’s
globally boxing is bigger no doubt. the canelo cotto fight sucked.
there are no big ppv fights left for boxing, gayweather and pacquiou ruined it. with there shitty fight they had.
even my brother who is a boxing fan and does not watch ufc, said that fight ruined boxing.
PBC says
There is no MMA without boxing.
As usual, UFC fanboys just can’t understand that globally boxing beats the s&*t out of the UFC.
And let’s cut the BS: the UFC’s PPV buys are going down the crapper. Mayweather’s last few fights sold more than the UFC could ever sell.
MMA in itself is dead. Just look at WSOF. It’s barely on the radar. The only thing that distinguishes the UFC from the WSOF is that the former is hyping its product to death.
I’ve seen many boxers transition to MMA. I’ve never seen any MMA fighter transition to boxing.
d says
Boxing fanboys focus on the global market that combined does less than half of what the N.American market does in terms of combat sports.
Mr. 5000 has to go to Kazakhstan to have more boxing fans.
“And let’s cut the BS: the UFC’s PPV buys are going down the crapper. Mayweather’s last few fights sold more than the UFC could ever sell.”
Delusions of grandeur. The UFC is going to do more revenue this year than they ever did. They’ve done more buys this year than boxing as usual. They are going to hit their second or third highest buyrate this year than they ever did. Next year looks to be even bigger than this year also, so it is insane to claim their ppv is in the gutter.
Also, Mayweather’s last few fights are a fraction of what the UFC has done.
Boxing isn’t dead, but its on life support. No ppv stars, tv ratings in the gutter. Promoters suing each other left and right. It is a mess. Everyone knew this was coming too, when Mayweather retired except the boxing fanboys.
Your analysis of WSOF/UFC goes to show how delusional you are. No need to even comment on it.
We’ve seen zero boxers transition with championship level success in mma. Keep in mind, Holm started out as a pro kickboxer. Which also proves that we have seen kickboxers transition to boxing and achieve championship status.
Mike says
According to some who were there they disagree with the numbers. According to them it was just over half full and question the 56000 attendance recorded. Hmmmmm. Something is fishy here.
THE HUNTER says
It never ceases to amaze me the dumb things that get typed by boxing fans.