UFC President Dana White has revealed that the blockbuster UFC 196 event broke records with 1.5 million pay-per-view buys on Saturday night.
“Guys, Saturday night was amazing for us,” White revealed on ESPN’s Max and Marcellus podcast yesterday. “We broke so many records.”
White went on to claim that UFC 196 is now their best selling pay-per-view event of all time.
“We broke all our records on Saturday night. It was the biggest pay-per-view we ever did, social media was ridiculous. Even on FOX, for the prelims we were No.1 on all broadcast and cable from 8-10 [PM] and in every demographic. You name it, we broke the record on Saturday. It was incredible.”
So, exactly how many PPV’s did they sell? According to White it was a whopping 1.5 million PPV buys.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking – didn’t UFC 100 do 1.6 million buys?
Yes, it did, and so there is a little confusion here. However, it’s most likely explained by the fact that we’re still just a week removed from UFC 196 and so the final total is still to be calculated, particularly as there will still be some who’ll have bought the event afterwards to watch it again.
Clearly, when all is said and done White thinks it’s going to push past that 1.6 million barrier, and let’s be honest – even if it didn’t, 1.5 million is still an incredible number, completely eclipsing the 1.2 million that UFC 194: Aldo Vs McGregor did back in December which was in itself an amazing achievement, or UFC 193: Rousey Vs Holm which did 1.1 million.
The other good news from Saturday night is that it appears to have made some of the big stars on the card very rich indeed, with White confirming that Conor McGregor made an enormous sum of money, while he suggests that Nate Diaz made well over a million dollars and Holly Holm made more at UFC 196 than she did for her entire boxing and MMA career to date.
Even with the sports two biggest stars Rousey and now McGregor losing the most important thing is that these huge-selling shows recently were all highly entertaining and have helped create a huge buzz that doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon.
People still want to see how the likes of Rousey, McGregor and indeed even Holm will bounce back from their losses, but they also now want to see what comes next for the likes of Diaz and Tate too, and that’s good news for the sport as we push towards another massive milestone at UFC 200 in July.
