A new report suggests that the pay-per-view view buy rate for this past weekend’s UFC 257: Poirier vs. McGregor II event on Fight Island was a huge success.
The Sports Business Journal has claimed that the event drew 1.2 million domestic buys on ESPN+, while a further 400,000 buys were recorded internationally, leading to a total of 1.6 million PPV buys worldwide.
As such, that would make UFC 257 one of the promotion’s biggest pay-per-view’s of all time, reaching close to Dana White’s own estimate following the show on Saturday night when he told reporters it was trending, “top two of all time.”
It should however be noted that some U.S. customers did have trouble ordering the event on Saturday night and that could potentially lead to refunds.
Nonetheless, while the event still falls some way short of UFC 229’s Khabib vs. McGregor showdown, which drew a whopping 2.4 million buys, it stands practically shoulder-to-shoulder with another McGregor fight against Nate Diaz at UFC 202, which drew 1.65 million buys.
So, it’s clear from all this that McGregor remained a massive draw for the promotion, even as he was sat out for almost the entirety of 2020, although it remains to be seen how his popularity will hold now that he’s suffered his first MMA loss due to strikes.
McGregor is already talking up a potential trilogy fight with Poirier, who he previously TKO’d back in 2014, while he also mentioned another trilogy fight with Nate Diaz at the weekend, and it does feel at this stage like those would still be fights people would want to see.
