UFC 329, headlined by the long-awaited return of Conor McGregor against Max Holloway, drew an average of 15.9 million viewers to Paramount+ in the United States and Latin America last weekend.
That’s a very big number by MMA standards, but it does still fall short of the 17 million viewers who tuned into the UFC: White House event (aka UFC Freedom 250) on June 14th last month.
The same is true when it comes to average viewers, with UFC 329 drawing an average of 6.5 million viewers, while UFC Freedom 250 did 8.2 million viewers.
That being said, one metric where the McGregor event did win out was in consecutive streams, with UFC 329 peaking at 8.3 million streams, while UFC Freedom 250 did 7.9 million.
As far as the UFC Freedom 250 event goes, despite having Ilia Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje as the main event, it was the unique location and spectacle that was the real star of the show, drawing widespread mainstream media coverage in the build-up to fight night, while also having the vocal backing of President Trump and the fact it was tied in with the 250th birthday of the U.S.
However, UFC 329 was all about the star power of McGregor, who in his prime was unquestionably the sport’s biggest ever pay-per-view star.
McGregor’s reputation has taken a big hit since those glory days though, with three losses in his previous four fights before last weekend and having gone on a five-year layoff following his broken leg being overshadowed by a series of unsavoury incidents and criminal charges outside of the Octagon in recent years.
Nevertheless, the Paramount numbers prove that his ability to draw a crowd hasn’t deserted him, as realistically it’s hard to see who else on the UFC roster as things stand could pull in those kind of numbers.
With all that being said though, what’s unclear is whether McGregor still has that kind of drawing power after the disastrous outcome of the rematch with Holloway, which saw him blow out his knee almost immediately with a jumping roundhouse kick, leading to the fight being waved off after just 69 seconds.
Together with how nervous McGregor looked immediately prior to the fight there’s no doubt that the mystique and aura surrounding him has taken another major hit.
Despite that he’s become famous enough that he would likely still draw more eyeballs than any other UFC fighter if he does come back again in the future, even if that becomes more down to the ‘freak show’ factor and morbid curiosity rather than a genuine belief that he can turn back the clock and become a force of nature in the Octagon once more.
