Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor gate falls well short of Mayweather vs. Pacquiao record number

One of the key financial numbers is in from Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor.

The Aug. 26 boxing match made $55,414,865.79 in ticket sales at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, MMA Fighting confirmed with the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) on Tuesday. The news was first reported by Jed I. Goodman on Twitter.

The figure is far below the record gate number produced by Mayweather’s fight with Manny Pacquiao in 2015, which generated $72,198,500 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas for the sale 16,219 tickets.

Mayweather vs. McGregor sold 13,094 tickets with 137 complimentary tickets given out, the commission confirmed. T-Mobile Arena was configured to seat 17,698 spectators, according to the NAC.

Promoters were bullish on Mayweather vs. McGregor breaking the gate record. UFC president Dana White said two days before the fight that the gate was at $70 million. But it appears the mega bout fell short.

The other important metric — pay-per-view sales — has yet to officially come in. Showtime Sports executive Stephen Espinoza said Tuesday on The MMA Hour that MayMac is close to breaking the MayPac record in PPV buys, which was 4.6 million.

“We are now sort of mid-4 million,” Espinoza said. “If we see the kind of growth that we typically see, then we’ll break the record. I don’t want to assume we get the typical growth, because this is not a typical event. There are many different ways in which this event behaved differently. But we have a very good shot at breaking the record.”

The Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin boxing match, which is set to take place Sept. 16 at T-Mobile Arena, is sold out and estimated at $30 million gross ticket sales. That will now be good enough for the third highest gate in Nevada history behind Mayweather-Pacquiao and Mayweather-McGregor.