Consider this very good news for boxing in general: the Floyd Mayweather Jr./Juan Manuel Marquez bout from last Saturday pulled at least one million pay per view buys, and may go as high as 1.6 million when all is said and done.
That’s from Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports, who reported the news last night.
The UFC is a privately owned company and does not have to release its pay-per-view sales, which it chooses not to do. Occasionally, we’re able to find out what a particular fight sold, but it’s not often. From what I’m hearing, though, the Mayweather fight had a convincing victory. I’m hearing the Mayweather-Marquez pay-per-view is going to come in at or near 1 million sales. I don’t have a verifiable figure for the UFC, but I believe it will be far lower than 1 million. The boxing number should be released by Thursday at the latest and perhaps on Wednesday.
We’re almost always able to find out what the UFC does on PPV, but it comes from the cable companies and not from Zuffa itself. But Kevin is absolutely correct about UFC 103; I would be absolutely shocked if it breaks the 600,000 buy barrier. I think a number around 450,000 is probably more accurate, which isn’t bad when you consider that the show was headlined by Rich Franklin vs. Vitor Belfort in a non-title catchweight bout.
As I said above, this is very good news for boxing. It’s also very good news for “Money” Mayweather, who cements himself as one of the biggest PPV draws in combat sports.
