Perhaps Conor McGregor had a point when he claimed the UFC owed him a billion from its $4bn sale to WWE-IMG.
The Notorious is far and away the biggest draw on the company’s roster and has been so ever since he dismantled Jose Aldo in 13 seconds, at UFC 194, to claim the featherweight strap.
McGregor is three years into his UFC career but he has been a big draw for the past two years [defeating Dustin Poirier at UFC 178].
The promotion has claimed UFC 202, which featured McGregor’s victory over Nate Diaz, reached over a million pay-per-view buys. Final figures are set to be confirmed but UFC 202 is set to be the fifth biggest earner in the promotion’s history [100, 194, 196 and 200 took in more PPV money].
Between 2011 and 2014, the UFC had one PPV go over 1 million buys. There have been five in the last nine months: 193, 194, 196, 200, 202.
— Marc Raimondi (@marcraimondi) August 26, 2016
Three of the five events that got over a million PPV buys were headlined by McGregor. The other was Ronda Rousey’s shock loss to Holly Holm [193] and Brock Lesnar’s highly-publicised, controversial return against Mark Hunt [200].
However, when gate receipts and PPV numbers are added up, McGregor reigns supreme. UFC 196 took in $8.1m on the gate and was just shy over 1.5m PPVs. UFC 202’s gate receipts were $7.6m and it is projected to near 1.1m PPVs.
According to Patrick Wyman of Bleacher Report, McGregor-headlined events in 2016 – all two of them – have made the promotion $100m.
https://twitter.com/Patrick_Wyman/status/769051909051256832
15% of the UFC’s total revenue if the year finishes on pace with 2015’s returns [it had an American total of 7.7m PPV buys].
McGregor will be meeting with the UFC’s new management team in the coming weeks and a new contract will be up for discussion. He told The MMA Hour before his win over Diaz that he had been approached by Ari Emanuel, the UFC’s new chief executive. McGregor commented:
“[Emanuel] said ‘You think you’ve made a lot of money now kid? We’re going to make you a lot more.
“I thought ‘Who the f**k is that guy?'”
The contract negotiations should be interesting, to say the least.
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