After ratings for the preliminary card on Fox Sports 1 proved promising, this should come as no surprise. The return of Ronda Rousey appears to have cracked one million orders. UFC 207, as reported by Forbes, is trending towards the 1.1 million buy mark. That’s great news for the UFC’s year end show, and puts the cap on a huge year for the promotion.
While the UFC does not release official PPV numbers, UFC 207 would be the fifth PPV event to surpass the million buy mark in 2016. Based on estimates by Dave Meltzer of MMAFighting and MMAPayout, UFC 196, 200, 202, and 205 all brought in a million or more buys. The rematch between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz at UFC 202 ruled the roost. With an estimated 1,650,000 buys, it topped the promotion’s previous record of 1,600,000 buys at UFC 100. UFC 205, the promotion’s debut in New York, looks as if it will come in around roughly the same buyrate.
Never before has the UFC had so many million plus PPV events in a calendar year. The UFC 207 number is made more impressive by the fact that Rousey avoided almost all media leading into the fight. However, there is cause for concern. Although the UFC had a tremendous year at the box office, aside from UFC 200 it was entirely based off of Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey. Rousey’s career is now up in the air. Conor McGregor, meanwhile, may be out for as long as ten months as he’s expecting his first child. The UFC will be hard pressed to replace their stars, and equaling the year that just passed may prove difficult.
