How many PPV buys did UFC 262 sell?
The UFC 262 event did an estimated 300,000 pay-per-view buys in the United States.
The UFC's iconic lightweight title has been held by some of the biggest stars in the history of the sport. But the PPV numbers for the last weekend's UFC 262 suggest that the newly-crowned champion Charles Oliveira has a lot of work to do before he is at par with his predecessors Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and BJ Penn.
According to Sports reporter John Ourand, the UFC 262 did an estimated $300,000 buys in the United States on ESPN+. The numbers were published by Aaron Bronsteter of TSN on his Twitter account. The UFC has not released the official estimates of the event yet.
Charles Oliveira's opponent Michael Chandler and co-headliner Tony Ferguson were the biggest stars competing at the UFC 262 event and the duo mostly carried the promotional weight on their shoulders.
Although UFC 262 did not pull off impressive numbers when it came to pay-per-view buys, the event pulled in a 16,000+ live audience.
The event generated $4.11 million in live gate collection and broke the arena record at the Toyota Center in Houston where the event was held. UFC 247: Jones vs Reyes previously held the record with a $3.55 million live gate.
UFC 262 numbers prove that Conor McGregor is still the biggest star in MMA
UFC 262 is the least sold pay-per-view event so far in 2021. Every other event has generated at least 500,000 pay-per-view buys this year. However, it should be noted that most of the UFC's top stars - Conor McGregor, Jorge Masvidal, Israel Adesanya, Kamaru Usman and Francis Ngannou fought in the first half of 2021.
While the Conor McGregor-headlined UFC 257 event started kicked off the year with a whopping 2 million pay-per-view buys, the second-highest UFC 259 event led by Israel Adesanya failed to reach even the halfway mark and capped at an estimated 800,000 pay-per-view buys.
Although the numbers generated by other stars are nothing to scoff at, no fighter has been able to come close to the Irishman in terms of popularity.
UFC president Dana White has repeatedly stated that choosing the Conor McGregor trilogy fight over title shot is the best decision Dustin Poirier could have made. The huge gap between the UFC 257 and UFC 262 numbers proved that White was not wrong.
Charles Oliveira is likely to defend his lightweight title against the winner of the Dustin Poirier vs Conor McGregor 3 bout scheduled to headline UFC 264 on July 10.