Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather can toast to good business over the overwhelming success of 2017’s Money Fight.
Say what you want about Floyd Mayweather the person, but Floyd Mayweather the boxer, the promoter, the businessman is operating on a different level to everyone else.
Prior to facing UFC megastar Conor McGregor, the biggest draw in sports history was involved in the three most-watched PPV fights of all time. Mayweather’s 2013 bout against Canelo Alvarez raked in 2.2 million buys, his 2007 prizefight against Oscar De La Hoya drew around 2.5 million and for 2015’s ‘Fight of the Century’ the figure was a whopping 4.6 million.
Despite his style being considered ‘boring’ by casual fans, the marketing genius always seems to find a way to get the masses to part with their hard-earned cash just to see him fight.
Another huge fight in 2017 is possible #MayweathervsMcGregor https://t.co/JpD1UUQL8H
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 29, 2017
There was a school of thought out there that MayMac would fall short of the PPV record. Yahoo Sports’ Kevin Iole suggested that the short build-up and the boxing media’s portrayal of the fight as a circus sideshow may impact negatively on the sales.
However, that doesn’t appear to have been the case, at least according to former UFC star and MMA pioneer Urijah Faber.
The ‘California Kid’ has kept himself busy during retirement by commentating alongside Snoop Dogg for the Snoopcast commentary of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender series. Following the season one finale, Faber uploaded a video of White talking numbers behind the scenes to his Instagram account.
Although we can’t hear the actual figure White said, Faber suggested the Money Fight did 6.5 million buys, smashing the record by over 2 million buys.
Wow. In this Instagram story post by Urijah Faber, Dana White says #MayweatherMcGregor did 6.5M PPV buys. pic.twitter.com/JBJGNUDy7q
— Chamatkar Sandhu (@SandhuMMA) August 30, 2017
Is Faber trolling everyone with clever editing or is this the truth? I suppose we’ll have to wait to find out.
