How many pay-per-view buys did UFC 189 do for McGregor vs. Mendes? UFC says 1 million

Conor McGregor

Conor McGregor’s drawing power has apparently been proven again, this time on pay-per-view.

According to the interim UFC featherweight champion’s official UFC biography, the McGregor-headlined UFC 189 event on July 11 in Las Vegas netted 1 million PPV buys.

“The fight attracted a record 16,019 fans to the MGM Grand Garden Arena, plus a $7.2-million live gate and 1 million pay per view buys, proving McGregor’s sizable drawing power,” the UFC.com biography reads. “Some 3,000 Irish fans converged on Las Vegas and left deliriously happy.”

McGregor (18-2 MMA, 6-0 UFC) defeated Chad Mendes (17-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC) by second-round TKO in the UFC 189 main event to win the interim 145-pound belt. “The Notorious” was originally scheduled to face Jose Aldo in a highly anticipated grudge match, but the bout fell apart less than two weeks out when Aldo suffered a rib injury.

The UFC is a private company and does not typically reveal PPV buy rates. Industry insiders, such as Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer, have reported figures in the past.

When MMAjunkie interviewed Meltzer in March, when the original Aldo-McGregor fight was still set, he said he did not anticipate the event to reach 1 million buys.

“Jon Jones and (Daniel Cormier at UFC 182) did not break a million, and I was never more excited for a fight in years than Jon Jones and ‘DC,’” Meltzer said. “And I was more excited about that fight than this one. So I’m thinking it’s not going to.”

Only a handful of UFC cards have reportedly topped 1 million buys. MMA Manifesto, which tracks reported numbers, listed just eight events to reach the mark. The highest of those figures was UFC 100 in July 2009 at 1.6 million buys.

Prior to the event, many wondered how McGregor would fair with the role of capturing eyeballs on the sport’s most prestigious platform. UFC 189 marked his first pay-per-view main event, however, all the attributes for success were in place.

UFC President Dana White said several weeks prior to UFC 189 that the show was “tracking” to reach or surpass the 1 million mark. Maybe believed the Aldo injury was a significant blow to the marketability of the card, but White also said the Mendes replacement actually bolstered attention.

“It will do over a million. It’s already tracking at over a million buys,” White said. “You lose a fighter like Jose Aldo and put Mendes in and we added to the gate. This fight is breaking every record, pre-buys on pay-per-view, traffic on the website, it’s bigger than UFC 100. This will be the biggest fight ever.”

For complete coverage of UFC 189, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

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