Conor McGregor left UFC 264 with a broken leg and a loss on his record but his status as the biggest draw in combat sports remains untouched.
After UFC President Dana White teased UFC 264 as one of the highest selling pay-per-view cards the company has ever promoted, the initial numbers for the event now back up that statement.
According to a report from the Sports Business Journal, the event headlined by McGregor and Dustin Poirier in the main event sold 1.8 million pay-per-views globally, which would make that the second-highest selling card in UFC history.
The only event with more overall sales would be UFC 229, which was headlined by McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov with that event topping 2.4 million pay-per-view buys.
Overall, UFC 264 reportedly sold around 500,000 pay-per-views internationally, which means approximately 1.3 million sold in the United States by way of ESPN+. That’s a huge number for the Disney-owned company, who invested in the UFC by signing an exclusive agreement for pay-per-view broadcasts back in 2019.
The event this past Saturday night ended after Poirier dominated early but then McGregor suffered a gruesome broken leg in the closing seconds of the opening round. The fight was stopped immediately with Poirier winning by TKO due to a doctor’s stoppage.
Following the fight, McGregor underwent a three-hour surgery to stabilize his leg after breaking both the fibula and the tibia. While doctors told McGregor’s manager Audie Attar that they expect the UFC superstar to make a “full recovery,” he’s still likely looking at a year or more on the sidelines as he allows his leg to heal.
As far as McGregor’s star power goes, he remains the top draw in the UFC and combat sports by a wide margin after another huge number delivered on pay-per-view.
When it comes to the UFC, McGregor has now competed in all five of the highest selling pay-per-view cards in the company’s history (UFC 202, UFC 229, UFC 246, UFC 257, and UFC 264) as well as the second-highest selling pay-per-view of all time for his 2017 boxing match against Floyd Mayweather, which sold around 4.3 million buys.