UFC President Dana White said Saturday’s fight in Las Vegas between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor drew 6.5 million pay-per-view buys in a conversation posted on Instagram by Mike Dyce of Sports Illustrated (warning: contains NSFW language):
White offered the buy number during a conversation with Urijah Faber and Snoop Dogg. Dave Meltzer of MMA Fighting noted White was likely referring to the worldwide figure—not the number of buys in North America.
Meltzer reported the bout is expected to top numbers done by the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight from 2015 in a number of other countries—the United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland among the most notable—but “not necessarily” in the United States.
The U.S. numbers are most important for the overall gross because it was $99.95 here, rather than the cheaper prices available elsewhere in the world. Mayweather-Pacquiao did 4.6 million pay-per-view buys in North America and 5.5 million worldwide.
These do not include streaming numbers. The bout was made available by UFC.tv, though their streaming service had a number of issues. Cable providers also had trouble providing the event, which led to a brief delay for the beginning of the Mayweather-McGregor bout.
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