UFC 229 Expected To Top 2.4 Million Pay-Per-View Buys

Early estimates for the UFC 229 buyrate are in.

Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter has revealed that the event looks to have brought in over 2.35 million pay-per-view buys in early estimates and that the final number is expected to surpass 2.4 million. UFC 229 featured one of the biggest fights in mixed martial arts history. In the main event, Khabib Nurmagomedov successfully put his lightweight title on the line against Conor McGregor. Nurmagomedov earned a fourth-round submission win. The co-main event saw a war between Tony Ferguson and Anthony Pettis, which was won by “El Cucuy.”

After Nurmagomedov’s victory, the lightweight champion hopped into the crowd and went after Dillon Danis. This started a brawl and some of Nurmagomedov’s teammates brawled with McGregor inside the Octagon. The Nevada State Athletic Commission has withheld Nurmagomedov’s purse and is looking at potential punishments for both “The Eagle” and the “Notorious” one.

UFC president Dana White says he hopes at worst Nurmagomedov is suspended four to six months. If that were the case then White claims he will not strip Nurmagomedov of the UFC lightweight title. The absolute bare minimum penalty that Nurmagomedov can expect is a fine.

Meltzer notes that the traditional PPV numbers are estimated at 1.9 million. You can throw in an additional 470k to 480k across streaming platforms. Meltzer says there are some factors that makes comparing UFC 229 with other marquee PPV sporting events tough:

“Because the nearly 2.4 million number is worldwide, making exact comparisons to the biggest PPVs in history is difficult. It is, by far, the biggest in UFC history. It was well below, on a worldwide basis, fights that did big numbers in both the U.S. and the U.K., since this fight was not on U.K. PPV. McGregor’s future fights starting in 2019 will be on PPV in the U.K. It definitely fell below Floyd Mayweather’s boxing matches with Manny Pacquiao, McGregor and Oscar De La Hoya, and perhaps Canelo Alvarez. But it’ll be ahead of most everything else, even Mike Tyson fights.”

To compare, UFC 228 back in September is estimated at just 130,000 buys. That card was headlined by a welterweight title fight between champion Tyron Woodley and Darren Till. Woodley retained his title via second-round submission.