White offers Mayweather, McGregor $25M each, PPV split to fight
UFC president Dana White has his own thoughts on how much it will take to make a Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight happen.
Earlier this week, Mayweather commented on a hypothetical bout between himself and the UFC's lightweight champion, claiming that he had already offered McGregor $15 million and a share of the pay-per-view profits to take the fight. For his part, Mayweather said he expects to be paid at least $100 million to fight McGregor.
White appeared on "The Herd" on Friday with a counter-offer that would result in a significantly lower payday for Mayweather.
"We'll pay (Mayweather) $25 million," said White. "We'll pay Conor $25 million. And then we'll talk about PPV at a certain number. There's a real offer."
White denied that any actual negotiations have occurred between Mayweather's camp and anyone in the UFC that would be responsible for making the crossover clash happen. This is the first time that White has even entertained the possibility of a Mayweather-McGregor fight happening after months of vehemently refuting the idea.
In contrast to Mayweather's claims that he would be the "A-side" of a meeting with McGregor, White pointed out that Mayweather's last fight against Andre Berto drew poor PPV numbers and that he considers McGregor to be the far bigger name internationally. He also noted that McGregor has more compelling opponents in the UFC than Mayweather has in the world of boxing.
"Whether Conor fights Floyd or he doesn't, there's a line of guys that are ready to fight Conor that Conor will fight that are going to do over a million PPV buys," said White. "Conor McGregor loves to fight and he is one of those guys that will take on anybody, anywhere."
Prior to fighting Berto, Mayweather defeated Manny Pacquiao in the highest-grossing PPV event in history. The long-awaited bout generated an estimated $410 million in PPV buys, and Mayweather was reportedly paid over $220 million for the bout.
White acknowledged that a boxing match between Mayweather and McGregor might lack excitement, but that the matchmakers would build an event around them like any other UFC show and likely include another title fight in the co-main event.