Dave Meltzer of MMA Fighting is reporting that early estimates of the UFC 217 drew 875,000 PPV buys in North America making it the biggest PPV show for 2017 thus far.
UFC 217 featured Georges St Pierre’s return against middleweight champion Michael Bisping in addition to two other championship fights.
Google trends reflected strong interest in the PPV. There were over 1 million google searches on the Saturday of the PPV for UFC 217. The UFC Prelims drew 1.276 million viewers despite starting on FS2.
Payout Perspective:
Very good result but if you are gaging success by the 1 million PPV buy threshold, it may disappoint. There were 3 title fights and the return of GSP. There was more interest in Canada for this PPV but it wasn’t enough to hit 1 million in North America. The good news that it’s likely the PPV buys worldwide exceed 1 million and shows that GSP is still a draw.