We’re now mere hours away from the most anticipated fight in a long, long time. Looking at the fight between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather on paper makes it seem like the biggest mismatch in the history of the sport. The most accomplished fighter of his generation is stepping into the ring with someone who is entering his first professional fight.
The biggest skeptics among us might be asking just how this could all come together and really be taken seriously. Even with all of the hype, even with the years of wondering whether we’d see the two controversial pugilists step into the ring or the octagon… is it really worth it?
The proof comes in the projected amount of revenue the fight is going to make, which is hard to wrap any mind around. Via Deadline, projections indicate Mayweather-McGregor will make more than $500 million dollars, likely somewhere around $700 million, and possibly even $1 BILLION before it’s all said and done:
On Saturday night, a pay-per-view event stands to score an estimated U.S. take of $500M-plus. If it were a movie, that figure easily would land in the list of 10 top-grossing films of all time.
Obviously we’re taking about the boxing match between the undefeated, five-division, 11-time world boxing champ Floyd Mayweather Jr., 40, and Irish UFC lightweight champ Conor McGregor, 29, aka “The Money Fight,” which will air live from the 20K-seat T-Mobile arena in Paradise, NV.
That PPV revenue projection is based off the $99.95 rental fee and easily will eclipse the 4.6M buys ($460M) of the 2015 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao bout. Worldwide, Saturday’s fight is forecasted to generate $700M to the 2015 match’s $600M. Uber-aggressive estimates even are predicting $1 billion worldwide. Reported estimated venue ticket sales for Mayweather-McGregor are expected to near $90M, besting the $72M made by Mayweather-Pacquiao. The largest number of ticket sales for any UFC fight featuring McGregor amounted to just under $18M, and that was November’s UFC 205 in New York, when McGregor defeated Eddie Alvarez to win the lightweight belt.
That’s just an insane number that tells you why and how all of this came together. Whatever the final number ends up being, it’s going to make both of these men very, very, very, very, very rich. And for McGregor especially, he’s got nothing to lose and everything to gain. At least if it were a movie, fans would be guaranteed a lengthy, dramatic bout that likely wouldn’t be over in 30 seconds.
[Deadline]
