Conor McGregor’s money-spinning bout against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in August will go down as the most successful boxing debut of all time
Having made over $100 million for his efforts, “The Notorious” also further enhanced his profile on the world stage and opened doors to new financial interests as a result of the “Money Fight”.
Conor McGregor also joined the list of participants in the highest grossing pay-per-view (PPV) fights in boxing history. The UFC lightweight champion can now boast to be sharing the same list with legendary boxers such as Mike Tyson, Oscar De La Hoya, Manny Pacquiao, Evander Holyfield and, of course, Mayweather himself.
Although McGregor casually claimed that the bout had sold in excess of 6 million pay-per-view buys, Showtime Sports confirmed a final figure of 4.3 million North American purchases for the highest grossing fight of 2017. Mayweather vs. McGregor fell approximately 300k buys short of breaking the record set by 2015’s contest between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.
Showtime Sports released a statement on Thursday confirming the final numbers:
“SHOWTIME Sports confirmed today that the SHOWTIME PPV presentation of Mayweather vs. McGregor on August 26, 2017 generated 4.3 million pay-per-view buys in North America. This includes traditional television distribution and online portals such as the new SHOWTIME PPV app and SHOWTIMEPPV.com as well as UFC.TV in U.S. and Canada.
Mayweather vs. McGregor, a four-fight SHOWTIME PPV boxing event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, officially stands as the second largest pay-per-view event of all time behind Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, which set the North American pay-per-view mark at 4.6 million buys in 2015. The SHOWTIME PPV totals for Mayweather vs. McGregor far exceed the now third best event in history—nearly doubling the 2.48 million buys for Oscar De La Hoya vs. Mayweather in 2007.
The total global revenue from the event including ticket sales, sponsorship and international distribution exceeds $600 million, which—along with Mayweather vs. Pacquiao— is among the largest for a single-day sporting event of all time. Mayweather and SHOWTIME PPV now account for the three highest grossing pay-per-view events in television history with the third-ranked event Mayweather vs. Canelo from 2013.”
