The 5 biggest selling pay-per-views in UFC history
While the UFC prides itself on putting the best fights possible together in order to find out who the best fighter in the world is, the truth is that like any promotion; the UFC is also focused on drawing money.
Long gone are the years when the UFC struggled to draw big money on pay-per-views, with the promotion’s shows now regularly drawing buy rates over a million.
But who is the biggest drawing star in UFC history, and what is the biggest selling pay-per-view in UFC history? With names like Conor McGregor, Brock Lesnar, Ronda Rousey and Nate Diaz amongst the highest-drawing fighters to set foot into the promotion, it’s a fascinating question.
With that in mind, here are the five biggest-selling pay-per-views in UFC history.
All figures taken from Tapology.com
#5 UFC 246: McGregor vs. Cerrone (2020) – 1.353m pay-per-view buys
The first entry on this list comes with a slight caveat. According to many sources, including the usually-reliable Dave Meltzer, UFC 246’s pay-per-view buy rate reached the 1m mark. This was historic, largely because it was the first streaming-only ESPN+ pay-per-view to reach that number.
However, the show – which was headlined by a welterweight clash between Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone – was seemingly overtaken in surprising fashion later in 2020.
Incredibly, UFC 251 – the first show to take place on ‘Fight Island,’ headlined by Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal – reportedly drew 1.3m pay-per-view buys. To say it was a surprise to hear that the two welterweights had outdrawn McGregor would be an understatement.
However, when it came to the end of 2020, ‘Notorious’ shone new light on things. He revealed that UFC 246 had actually drawn 1.353m pay-per-view buys, pushing it into fifth place on this list and making it the best-selling UFC event of the year.
So, where’s the caveat? Well, if UFC 246 was projected to draw 1m pay-per-view buys, and it actually drew 1.3m, could UFC 251 have hit a higher mark than that? It’s possible, but as we have no confirmation of this. It’s impossible to put it ahead of UFC 246 in the bigger picture – once again confirming McGregor’s status as the biggest star in the promotion.