UFC president Dana White claims that the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor boxing match broke the all-time pay-per-view record.
Though Showtime, which was the pay-per-view operator for the event, and Mayweather Promotions LLC, which was the primary promoter, have yet to confirm White’s statement, the UFC’s head honcho told the Wall Street Journal that, as the numbers come in, Mayweather vs. McGregor is at the pinnacle across the globe.
“Oh, we broke the record. The thing ended up doing 6.7 million pay-per-view buys globally,” White proclaimed. “How about this: we broke the record in Australia; we broke the record in the U.K., at four in the morning, four in the morning, we broke the pay-per-view record; broke the record in Spain, Canada, and the United States.”
If those numbers hold up, and even if they’re anywhere in the ballpark, Mayweather vs. McGregor has to be scored as a tremendous success. And not only did it break records, it did so in the face of a digital environment that fosters pirating, a war the UFC has long battled.
“We broke that record too. Most pirated fight of all time. That’s another record we broke,” White laughed.
“We (the UFC) police it. There’s a lot of different things we do. We catch people. Every fight that we do, we battle piracy.”
Aside from breaking pay-per-view records, White said that the fight was also the most bet on sporting event ever in Las Vegas.
“It was the highest betting fight ever in the history of Las Vegas… highest betting sporting event. Bigger than the Super Bowl.”
The event is expected to be a one-off spectacle. Mayweather returned to retirement following the fight and McGregor is expected to return to the Octagon, at least in the near term. But by all counts, it was worth it, at least financially, for all parties involved.
