McGregor-Cerrone sells about 1M pay-per-views in U.S.
The UFC 246 fight between Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone generated about 1 million pay-per-view buys on ESPN+, according to Robert Iger, the chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company.
"We've been especially happy with a number of partnerships, particularly with the UFC, and the recent McGregor-Cerrone fight brought in about 1 million pay-per-view purchases and 0.5 million new subscribers (to ESPN+)," Iger said Tuesday on the company's quarterly conference call, according to The Motley Fool.
Disney holds a majority stake in ESPN, the UFC's distribution partner.
This is the first UFC event that has hit the 1-million mark since the promotion moved its pay-per-views exclusively to ESPN's streaming service in the U.S. in 2019, according to MMA Fighting's Dave Meltzer.
The events that reportedly sold the most pay-per-views before UFC 246 were UFC 239, which featured Jon Jones' light heavyweight title defense versus Thiago Santos, and UFC 244, which was headlined by Jorge Masvidal fighting Nate Diaz for the BMF title.
In March 2019, the UFC announced a deal that made all pay-per-view events available for purchase only on ESPN+, which has a subscription cost of $4.99 USD per month.
ESPN pays the promotion a "license fee" to sell pay-per-view cards, UFC COO Lawrence Epstein told MMA Fighting in 2019. The UFC appears to also get a percentage of pay-per-view revenue, though those terms have not been disclosed.
As expected, actual pay-per-view buy rates have decreased since the move to ESPN+. But that doesn't mean the UFC is earning less money than before, thanks to the license fee it receives upfront.
Under the traditional cable system, the UFC's pay-per-view record was a reported 2.4 million buys for Khabib Nurmagomedov versus McGregor at UFC 229 in October 2018.
McGregor stopped Cerrone in 40 seconds in the UFC 246 main event on Jan. 18 in Las Vegas. The former two-division champion hadn't competed since his fourth-round submission loss to Nurmagomedov, the current lightweight champion.