Report: UFC 214 drew estimated 850,000 buys

In what’s been an otherwise rough year for the UFC in terms of pay-per-view buys, UFC 214 was pegged to be far and away the best-selling event of 2017, and it looks like it’s met those expectations.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell reported on Monday that the July 29th event, which featured a tripleheader of title fights topped by a rematch between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier, drew in roughly 850,000 buys.

That number is 50,000 more than Jones’ first fight over Cormier at UFC 182 back in January 2015.

For comparison’s sake, UFC 213: Whittaker vs. Romero reportedly only managed no more than 150,000 buys. This sets a new high-mark for both Cormier and Jones as pay-per-view headliners, although the story here is really about Jones, who’s an established A-side fighter whose history of UFC PPV main events stretches back as far as 2011. With Ronda Rousey seemingly retired, Jones is the unquestioned #2 draw in MMA.

It’ll be interesting to see if the UFC can do better than 850,000 buys later in the year. I doubt Jones can approach that territory again if he defended his LHW title. His best shot would probably be taking on a heavyweight, but he has his sights set on Brock Lesnar and not current champion Stipe Miocic. Michael Bisping vs. Georges St-Pierre is expected to headline UFC 217 at New York’s Madison Square Garden, but can it garner as much interest as the heated Cormier-Jones rivalry twice managed? There’s also the possibility of UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor returning to MMA in December, which would surely bring over 1 million buys. Apart from those scenarios, UFC 214 looks to be the peak moment for the UFC’s 2017 pay-per-view calendar.