The Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand reports that UFC 264 scored 1.8 million PPV buys. Of the total global buys, 1.3 million buys were domestic on ESPN+.
The event featured the third fight between Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor with the “Diamond” winning via TKO due to McGregor’s broken tibia. ESPN went all out with its coverage as it included Stephen A. Smith, Max Kellerman and Teddy Atlas to the shoulder programming in the pre-show. Despite the fact that the main event did not live up to what many had expected, its clear that McGregor is still a draw.
UFC ratings notes:
— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) July 13, 2021
PPV buys came over just under 1.8 million globally. Dana White said as much at the post event press conference.
I'm told that 500,000 of those buys came from international, which means ESPN+ logged around 1.3 million buys.
UFC PPVs 2021
UFC 264: 1.8M
UFC 263: 600K
UFC 262: 300K
UFC 261: 700K
UFC 260: N/R
UFC 259: 800K
UFC 258: N/R
UFC 257: 1.2M
Payout Perspective:
A second Poirier-McGregor PPV that went over 1 million buys. Certainly, the rivalry and the star power of McGregor commanded many casual fans to purchase this PPV. With the amount of marketing and stars that came to the event and add the fact it was the first big UFC event in Vegas since the pandemic, this had all the characteristics of a big fight night.
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