There are a number of articles floating around about the INSANE amount of PPV business the UFC did in 2006, topping $200 million dollars. So sayeth the article I’m referencing from MMAWeekly.com:
The UFC broke the pay-per-view industry’s all-time records for a single year of business and generated over $200 million in revenue during 2006, according to two credible media outlets.
Both the Associated Press and the Wrestling Observer have reported that Zuffa’s pay-per-view revenue in 2006 exceeded $200 million, with the Wrestling Observer reporting the specific figure of $222,766,000. As the Observer put it, “UFC grossed more money this past year on PPV than any promotion in history ever has.”
Many fans of both boxing and MMA have wondered whether the UFC has already surpassed boxing. The numbers show that not only is the UFC bigger than boxing today, but it’s also bigger than boxing ever was from a PPV revenue standpoint. The all-time record year for boxing was 1999, with just over $200 million in combined PPV revenue, and the UFC broke that record by over $20 million in 2006.
The also went into some specifics. UFC 66 (Liddell vs. Oritz) topped the list with 1,050,000 PPV buys, which tops the biggest boxing event of the year (De la Hoya vs. Mayorga drew approximately 925,000). Rounding out the top three for the UFC was UFC 61 (Shamrock/Oritz, Arlovski/Sylvia – 775,000) and UFC 60 (Hughes vs. Gracie – 620,000). There were several other PPV’s that did 500,000+, but they didn’t specify which ones.
