John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal reports that UFC 259 this past Saturday drew 800,000 total PPV buys. 600,000 on ESPN+ and another 200,000 in international PPV buys.
UFC 259 featured three title bouts including Israel Adesanya challenging for the UFC Light Heavyweight title, Amanda Nunes defending her Featherweight title against Megan Anderson and Petr Yan defending his 135-pound title against Aljamain Sterling.
UFC 259’s 800K total buys is second this year to UFC 257’s 1.6M global buys in 2021. There was no report on the buy rate for UFC 258.
Payout Perspective:
One might infer from the buy rate that Israel Adesanya’s profile is ascending. Despite his loss to Jan Blachowicz, the event drew 800K total PPV buys. UFC 253, which featured Adesanya taking on Paulo Costa drew 700,000 total PPV buys. Of course, it was backed by Nunes and a competitive battle for the Bantamweight title.
UFC needs more megacards like this. The next one has two title fights but little else.