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The UFC is back in the Conor McGregor business, and that business is still very, very good.
Conor McGregor is making his long awaited return to the Octagon on January 18th, and fans are stoked. So stoked, in fact, that the event sold out almost instantly once tickets went on sale.
Those of us around long enough to remember the initial boom days of MMA used to go through this regularly. Any time the UFC came to Toronto or Montreal, tickets would disappear within an hour of being released to the general public. Fans used to have to pay for a Fight Club membership just for the honor of having a prayer of getting tickets.
With the supply of events being so high these days, demand hasn’t been quite as strong. But that only applies to events without Conor McGregor.
Dana White confirmed to Yahoo! Sports that tickets were gone the day of the sale, with the gate bringing in $10 million.
Per @danawhite #UFC246 sold out @TMobileArena on first day on sale. Gate of $10 million.
— Kevin Iole (@KevinI) December 21, 2019
Even with tickets starting at $350 a pop and going all the way up to $1500, every ticket available to the public got snapped up with some fans getting shut out just 3 minutes into sales.
Damnit! Tickets sold out to #UFC246 in 3 mins. Even at those crazy prices I was still going to go. now it looks like we’ll be partying at @ScubaTdiving house! I’ll bring the @budweiserusa #WarCowboy pic.twitter.com/R1jFiTorxz
— Chris Bohnenkamp (@cb2one4) December 20, 2019
Here’s how the gate numbers stack up:
From Yahoo, Dana White says #UFC246 sold out on first day on sale and gate is $10M.
Top 3 #UFC Vegas gates:
1. UFC 229: $17,188,894.67
2. UFC 200: $10,746,248.00
3. UFC 194: $10,006,249.00— Jed I. Goodman (@jedigoodman) December 22, 2019
Two of top three Vegas gates belong to McGregor, so now we’re wondering whether his fight with Aldo at UFC 194 has now been replaced with this Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone fight.
So if any of you wanted to go to UFC 246 without taking a serious hit to scalpers, you better hope Santa has a ticket waiting for you on Christmas morning.