Last weekend’s UFC 252 event headlined by a heavyweight trilogy fight between Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier reportedly drew in the region of 500,000 pay-per-view buys according to the Sports Business Journal.
According to reporter John Ourand that number is estimated to have included 400,000 buys directly from ESPN+.
Interestingly, though it’s a solid buy rate, it’s actually only the fourth best out of the seven events so far this year.
That’s partly due to the Covid pandemic, which led to a larger than would otherwise have been expected audience for the promotion’s first big PPV show back after several months off headlined by Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje at UFC 246, which drew 700,000 buys.
Then hype surrounding the promotion’s first big PPV event on ‘Fight Island’ and one of the big stars of the moment Jorge Masvidal stepping in on short notice to fight Kamaru Usman for the welterweight title sent UFC 249’s buy rate skyrocketing to a whopping 1.3 million buys.
Of course there was also the pre-Covid return to action of Conor McGregor against Donald Cerrone in January that also drew a healthy 1 million buys.
Though UFC 252 didn’t quite reach those heights, the numbers are still likely to be pleasing for the company as it wasn’t the most stacked card aside from the headline attraction.
