Everybody knows UFC 229 featuring the main event between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor will be the biggest fight of the year.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out McGregor’s drawing power where he’s routinely broken one million pay-per-view buys regardless of his opponent not to mention his part in the second most lucrative combat sports event in history when he faced Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match last year.
Add to that, Nurmagomedov has looked like an unstoppable juggernaut since first coming to the UFC. With an undefeated record and a style that seems like a nightmare matchup for McGregor, the anticipation for this fight is unlike anything the UFC has promoted in recent years.
In fact, UFC president Dana White, who will routinely tout big selling cards without mentioning specific numbers, has said rather bluntly what he expects for Nurmagomedov vs. McGregor.
“I am confident it will do 2 million on pay-per-view,” White told Yahoo Sports.
THE FIGHT IS ON!@TeamKhabib vs @TheNotoriousMMA Oct. 6 in Las Vegas at #UFC229! pic.twitter.com/GHNzmj4eWY
— UFC (@ufc) August 3, 2018
Now 2 million pay-per-view buys would already shatter the previous UFC record held by McGregor’s 2016 rematch against Nate Diaz that reportedly sold around 1.65 million pay-per-views.
In this case, however, White might be predicting 2 million buys on the low end of his expectations because he doesn’t rule out that the card could surpass 3 million buys when it’s all said and done.
“Believe me when I tell you, this will be massive,” White said. “It’s going to blow people away how big this event will be.”
If there’s been one major indication about the grand scale of this show it’s how quickly tickets sold out for UFC 229.
It took three hours for every ticket available to be purchased with White revealing that event UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier dropped $15,000 on a pair of seats — and he’s not even sitting in the prime real estate for the main event.
White says that cage side seats were going for at least $10,000 a piece once tickets were on sale.
“We’ve had some regular people pay $10,000 for a ticket,” White said. “But when I say regular people, I should say some very rich, regular people.”
The live gate for UFC 229 is expected to gross over $15 million, which would be the second biggest UFC card of all time — behind, yep you guessed it, another Conor McGregor card when UFC 205 sold more than $17 million at the gate for the card where he became the first ever simultaneous two division champion in UFC history.
How many pay-per-views do you believe Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Conor McGregor will pull at UFC 229? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
