MMA Junkie reports the attendance, gate and bonuses for UFC 197. The event featured the return of Jon Jones as he took on Ovince St. Pierre.
The MGM Grand Garden Arena drew 11,352 fans for a gate of $2.3 million.
Bonuses were awarded to Demetrious Johnson, Yair Rodriguez, Dannyl Roberts and Dominique Steele. Each earned $50K. Roberts and Steele earned the FOTN.
The event numbers were announced by the UFC at the post-fight press conference.
Payout Perspective:
Of the already 4 UFC events this year at the MGM, the event did better than February’s UFC event which was converted to a Fight Night. It also did better than Lawler-Condit in January. However, not surprising, it came second to March’s UFC 196 which featured Diaz-McGregor. Notably, Jon Jones’ last event at the MGM was UFC 182 which drew 11,575 for $3.7M. Slightly more in attendance but its clear the tickets were more expensive for Jones-Cormier.
Numbers are down, ship is sinking d. On the other side of the fence GGG fight was a sell out.
Hahahahahahaha.
The Jones replacement fight had a bigger gate than GGG.
A sinking ship is the state of boxing. Top 3 ppvs are going to be UFC, doesn’t sound like a sinking ship.
Also, GGG fight was a tv fight…Jones was a ppv.
Jones-Cormier II at UFC 200……over 1m ppv buys!!! Boxing….”crickets”.
Oh boy 1m buys lol, lesnar was pulling that years ago lol. Shows how little growth they’ve had.
Haha. Yeah, and no boxing ppv will probably hit that mark this year. Hahaha. Shows how pathetic their ppv has become.
Fight Fan – doing 1M in PPVs is pretty good. You don’t need to “grow” from there in order to have a thriving business. It’s what in business circles is known as a “cash cow”. You just have to milk that sucker.
Will be interesting to see what the buys were. No one from work said they were interested in buying or seeing it, no one i know is talking about it. The gate seems a bit low for a fight card of that magnitude though doesnt it? I heard the main event wasnt overly eventful, while on the other hand I hear Mighty Mouse stole the show.
This wasn’t a big ppv by any means when Cormier withdrew. OSP is a low profile fighter. This probably did 300-400k buys. The gate being 2.3m was about right for a replacement card like this.
GGG is doing the right things…he was meaner and more aggressive,fans in the arena were all cheering anticipating a k.o. ..and he delivered…..they were not booing the main event hahaha
He should fight 4x this year while waiting for canelo….
Station Casinos is going public to buyout the FERTITIAs. FERTITAS will
make close to $900M… None of the money will be going to pay debt to employees…
Interesting article by NY POST:
http://nypost.com/2016/04/23/ufc-owners-will-soon-collect-huge-payday-on-vegas-empire/
Just a matter of time before they sell ufc too. Panda Express Championship is coming
5 rounds of boredom I would be booing too if I was there. Jones is a grade A classless bum who has nothing going for him outside the cage.
“5 rounds of boredom I would be booing too if I was there. Jones is a grade A classless bum who has nothing going for him outside the cage.”
12 rounds of agonizing boredom is what championship boxing has turned into. The same can’t be said for ufc title fights.
as a long time boxing fan
lets be realistic here
the only fight right now in the u.s that would sell well is ggg vs canelo”coward” alvarez
but guess what canelo will not fight ggg .
the ufc will squash boxing this year.
you clowns forget the only two boxers who could sell ppvs both retired.
@turd,
Exactly. It’s sad that the best and most exciting boxer can’t even get a big named opponent and these cowards all dodge him. That’s boxing for you.
Boxing doesn’t need ppv to survive, unlike the panda fighting league
Boxing fans are silly, they get their news from their local Buffalo Wild Wings.
Hahahaha…they dont want to comment on the buyout…zuffa employees
Not even my local Buffalo Wild Wings wastes their money on the ufc ppvs anymore.
Hahaha. Of course you are obsessed with that.
Only problem is, the chain, as a whole, does carry the ufc ppvs still.
The article was pretty interesting. I won’t be surprised if the Ftta bros threw the UFC under the bus. Business is business, after all.
As for Jones’ return, he won a pathetic decision against someone who took the fight on a 12 days notice. It was a boring fight because this time he faced someone as tall as him. So all of his unfair advantages were useless.
To be honest, I barely know who St Preux is. If Jones couldn’t finish the fight after 17 months of training with the best coaches the UFC had to offer, I think it’s pretty safe to conclude that most of his success was due to his height and reach. If Jones were as short as Cor or Machida, he would have been KO-ed into obscurity a long long time ago.
I’m a fan of St Preux now. If he got all the advantages and preferential treatment Jones did, I think Preux would be a lot more successful and prominent.
I know Canelos fights have been in theaters.
Haven’t seen that for mma.
UFC 200 will certainly be in more.
Three ufc ppv’s will be higher than the top boxing ppv this year.
ive watched boxing for many years do you guys even realize most boxing cards on showtime and hbo lose money and the only way these fights are even happening is because h.b.o and showtime are paying for them.
boxing was much healther in the 80’s and 90’s
Lol never seen ufc sellout a stadium the size of wembly before. Boxing is bigger than ever globally and all ticket sales and ppvs show that:
big deal fight fan, no boxing show at wembley is doing 1.6 million ppv buys in the u.s at 65 a pop
use your brain
“Lol never seen ufc sellout a stadium the size of wembly before. Boxing is bigger than ever globally and all ticket sales and ppvs show that:”
You can’t actually believe what you just said. Boxing ppv is at an all time low.
4 million buys last year and all records for gates are held by boxing events. You guys keep clowning yourselves.
Hahahahaha. You need to investigate past and present tense. Those boxers are retired. The biggest gate and ppv this year will be ufc fights.
We’ll see D, boxing holds the top 3 events so I’m not holding my breath. Canelo GGG will be bigger than any ufc card this year lol.
Delusions of grandeur.
Boxing has had 1 ppv this year of note that did under 400k buys. The UFC already has a ppv that hit over 1.3m buys. No boxing match will beat that this year. That also doesn’t include UFC 200, McGregor’s next fight or Rousey at MSG. They are looking at 4 ufc ppvs this year that go over 1m buys. You are really going to implode when this all goes down. Hahahahahaha!