Early estimates for UFC 217 PPV buys are high, but not ‘Notoriously’ high

By Russell Ess - November 10, 2017

UFC 217 was a stacked pay-per-view card with three UFC title fights. For those that didn’t tune in to the action, it was a thrilling card where new champions were crowned in each title fight.

Dana White

The main event of the evening saw the return of former UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre. With previously last competing in 2013, GSP returned to the Octagon up a weight class and challenged Michael Bisping for his middleweight title. “Rush” ended up securing the win in the third round by choking Bisping unconscious after dropping him with a punch and some ground and pound. With the win, St-Pierre became the fourth fighter in history to become a two-weight UFC world champion.

Georges St-Pierre Dana White

Despite St-Pierre’s return and the other two title fights, which included Cody Garbrandt vs TJ Dillashaw and Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs Rose Namajunas, it appears at least from one report that UFC 217 did not go over one million pay-per-view buys. In contrast, cards with Conor McGregor fighting have done over a million buys in at least his past four UFC competitions.

MMA insider Jed I. Goodman tweeted that according to Dave Meltzer’s subscription-based Wrestling Observer Newsletter, early estimates for UFC 217’s pay-per-view buy rate in North America was around 875,000. This included the U.S. and Canada. However, they do not include internet pay-per-view buys.

The UFC is privately owned and does not need to disclose financials or pay-per-view numbers. UFC President Dana White often says how many pay-per-view buys an event will do but that’s just taking his word for it as White said during the post-fight press conference that UFC 217 did well over 1 million buys.

on 11/10/2017.


Topics:

Georges St. Pierre UFC 217