MMA Payout

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UFC 202: Payout Perspective

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Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective for UFC 202.  This time we take a look at Diaz-McGregor II at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

McGregor gains revenge on Diaz

It was a majority decision for Conor McGregor as 2 judges scored the bout for McGregor while the third judge determined it a draw.  It was a solid back and forth fight with McGregor coming out with a solid game plan but despite a crimson mask, Diaz came back and was able to score a 10-8 round (according to 1 judge).  McGregor seemed to tire after round 2 as he attempted to run from exchanges.  However, he was able to muster enough to narrowly escape a second loss to Diaz.

The question of when the third fight shall happen will likely depend on when McGregor will be available as an injured leg may keep him out until 2017.  Could we see Diaz-McGregor III in Vegas in July 2017?

Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz represented 82 percent of the reported salary payouts which we detail below.  A definite money fight.

Anrhony Johnson drops Glover

It took one uppercut for Anthony Johnson to end the night for Glover Teixeira.  Johnson should get Daniel Cormier next.  Johnson is on a roll and it looks like Cormier will need to rely on his wrestling to stop Rumble’s power.  This could be one of the main events for the UFC’s debut in New York this November.

Attendance and gate

Although there were reports that the event had trouble selling tickets, it still was a big gate for the UFC.  It drew 15,539 for a live gate of $7,692,010 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.  A typical McGregor draw.

UFC 196: 14,697 for $8.1M

UFC 194: 16,516 for $10.1M

UFC 189: 16,019 for $7.2M

Ticket prices were slashed for the event per ESPN.  There were still tickets available the day of the event.

Bonuses

The $50,000 bonuses went to Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz, Anthony Johnson and Donald Cerrone.  Diaz-McGregor earned FOTN while Johnson and Cerrone drew POTN.  There were a lot of stoppages to choose from and there could have been several fighters that could have drawn the bonuses.

Payouts

Conor McGregor made history by making the most of any reported payout for an MMA fighter when the NSAC disclosed he would receive $3 million for the fight.  Diaz came in second in payouts with $2 million.  The two drew over 80% of the reported overall payouts.

The full list is here.

Promotion of the Fight

The Pre-Fight Press Conference was a spectacle with bottle throwing and middle fingers everywhere.  With McGregor showing up late, it seemed to make Diaz mad as he got up and left and that’s when the presser went off the rails.


Also of note, Nate Diaz appeared on Conan and Jimmy Kimmel.

Conor McGregor did not do as many appearances but did another CNBC interview.

He also did an ESPN interview post-water bottle throwing and the censors were too slow to catch up with some profanity.

There was also a GQ profile on McGregor.

The promotion of the fight included twitter emojis for Diaz and McGregor when you used their hashtags.  Other fighters and famous folks did videos on twitter holding up the hashtag of they believed would win the fight.

The UFC 196 replay featuring Diaz-McGregor I was shown on FS1 Thursday night before the fight and drew over 200,000 viewers despite Olympics and NFL Preseason on the same night.  The first fight was available for free online too.

The UFC weigh-ins drew 173,000 viewers on Friday night and was followed by a replay of the “Bad Blood” special on Diaz-Conor which drew 162,000 viewers.

Sponsorships

The regular UFC sponsors were in the octagon including MetroPCS, Toyo Tires, Harley Davidson, Bud Light, 7-Eleven, UFC Fight Pass and Monster Energy Drink had the center of the octagon.  The movie “Hands of Stone,” which is about the Roberto Duran-Sugar Ray Leonard fight.  Bud Light had the fighter prep point.

The octagon also included the twitter hashtags for Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor.

Conor McGregor, who has an individual sponsorship with Reebok, did posts and a video for Reebok promoting himself and UFC 202.

Donald Cerrone had a Monster Energy Drink logo and Bud Light sponsorship on his shorts.  He also held the Monster can post-fight after  his stoppage of Rick Story.

Odds and Ends

No “Face the Pain” music intro to the PPV.  Perhaps a call by the new owners.

Conor McGregor claimed that he spent $300,000 on his training camp in preparation for Nate Diaz.  That’s 10% of his reported payout for his fight with Diaz.

Cerrone said that it was his last fight on his contract but his reps stated otherwise.  Regardless, he seemed set on re-signing with the UFC instead of testing free agency.

Despite the payout for Nate, Nick remains suspended due to the fact he has yet to pay his fine from the settlement with the commission.  As a result, he was banned from the arena and precluded from cornering Nate.

We’ll probably talk about Nate and his post-fight vaping later this week.

The Dominick Cruz-Alpha Male feud continues as Cody Carbrandt stopped Takeya Mizugaki in the first round.  Cruz stopped Mizugaki in the first round in his return from injury.  Post-fight Carbrandt turned his attention to Cruz who was in the FS1 booth.

Was that Eva Marie or Rando Markos with the red hair?

New thing for fighters.  They get to see tweets in the locker rooms:

Mike Perry may be the most-hated UFC fighter already.  Not only did he fake a handshake with his opponent at the televised weigh-ins.  There is audio of his corner possibly using racial slurs.  This, in addition to having a long fingernail going into the Octagon and then, without a clipper in site, he attempted to chew it off.

Gordon Ramsey, Skip Bayless, Dwight Howard and Kanye West were all in attendance at UFC 202.

It was Neil Magny’s last fight on his contract but his upset loss to Lorenz Larking probably does not help his cause when negotiating with the UFC.

No post-fight press conference as fighters had individual scrums.  A sign of the times for the new ownership?

The Pro Fighter’s Association held a press conference in Vegas during fight week to establish its potential roll in a fighter’s union for the UFC.  It will be a long, hard road for this to happen but we shall see.

Conclusion

5 million google searches on Saturday for UFC 202 might infer that the PPV buy rate will soar over 1M buys.  Certainly, the lack of tickets sales may be a concern but realize that the UFC moved into T-Mobile Arena versus most of their other big events taking place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.  T-Mobile holds more people so maybe the UFC overestimated the attendance.  While the event seemed to lack the buzz of a typical McGregor fight, it will still produce PPV buy rates.  I would expect this event to hit 1M buys.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I say this about everyone in the Scrap Pack – if they just learned to check kicks, they would win a lot more fights. It’s time for them to focus less on boxing and more on kickboxing. We saw the same thing in Gil’s last fight.

    All that said, I had it a narrow win for Nate, but a draw or a narrow win for McGregor are all good results. It’s a matter of whether you score against the guy bleeding or the guy running away.

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  2. Another million+ PPV. Not bad. And the 3rd fight is a good bet to be over 1M. In the current PPV environment this is especially impressive.

    Reply

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