“The Notorious” Conor McGregor has proven his superstar status once again with CEO and Chairman of The Walt Disney Company Bob Iger revelation of the streaming buys for UFC 246 during the company’s quarterly conference call. UFC 246 did a record-breaking one million streaming pay per view buys. This was further detailed by a report from MMA Fighting’s Dave Meltzer. UFC 246 featured a welterweight matchup between McGregor and Donald Cerrone.
The previous streaming record was held by the first Logan Paul vs KSI celebrity boxing fight with 814,000 buys. UFC 246 was also the first pay per view of the ESPN Plus era to set the pay per view at $64.99 to buy. If fans didn’t have ESPN Plus, they could’ve bundled the pay per view and the ESPN Plus for about $70. This also resulted in UFC 246 increasing the subscription numbers for ESPN Plus.
Iger also revealed in the conference call that UFC 246 brought in 500,000 new subscribers. In total, ESPN Plus has 7.6 million subscribers. By December 31, 2019, the total number of subscriptions was 6.6 million. The ability to bundle Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN for 12.99 and UFC 246 is the result of the increase.
The drawing power of McGregor is a major factor in the success of UFC 246. He has been featured in four of the top five biggest pay per views buys in UFC’s history. It was also heavily promoted as the big return for McGregor. Meltzer also reports that UFC 246 based on the numbers available generated “$70 million just in streaming revenue.” The PPV also earned an $11 million live gate at the T-Mobile in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the revenue from streaming and television buys outside of the U.S that could hit $20 million. It’s safe to say UFC 246 has a major success and McGregor is one of the biggest draws in combat sports, possibly all time.