This is quite the surprise: according to Dave Meltzer, the pay per view buyrate for Couture vs. Lesnar will come in over 1 million buys and has a very good chance to top the Chuck Liddell/Tito Ortiz fight as the biggest in company history.
UFC has not made a public announcement of the buys for UFC 91, but privately, Dana White has told people the number is right at the 1 million mark. Two others have confirmed that at least this is the number UFC is talking about internally, with the actual figure being pegged at 1,010,000 buys. It was stated that if they do well in late reported buys, they have a solid to good shot at beating the 1,050,000 mark set in 2006 by Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz, and are not publicly saying anything because they want to announce it was the biggest ever, which at this point, is something they can’t say. Keep in mind our trending patterns came in at 800,000 to 850,000 buys. Lesnar seems to be the one person whose drawing power never gets fully reflected in early trending patterns.
If this number is accurate, based on Couture’s contract and his PPV bonuses, he would be earning $2.61 million in total for the show. The percentages in Lesnar’s contract are not known, but sources close to the situation have said they are a little lower than Couture’s. However, Lesnar made $200,000 based on winning the fight that Couture didn’t, and both men were guaranteed $250,000 as their base pay if they lost and the show did less than 175,000 buys. In addition, if the number is accurate, Lesnar, headlining three shows that did an estimated 2.2 million in total buys, will finish slightly below Ortiz in 2006 (2.25 million total buys) as the biggest single year drawing card in company history. If the number is accurate, it would also be the biggest money total gross in UFC history because of the $44.95 price instead of $39.95 for Liddell/Ortiz. Between the live show and the PPV, the Liddell-Ortiz total revenue would have been $47.33 million and Lesnar-Couture would have been $50.21 million. It wouldn’t be at the level of the big boxing shows because they are $54.95 and the live gates are larger. The biggest WWE show, which should have been the 2007 Wrestlemania, would have been about $55 million (because foreign buys are priced so much lower than domestic, as that show did 1,250,000 buys, with about 65% at a $49.95 domestic price).
