UFC attorney says latest low PPV buy rumors are off by ‘something in excess of six figures’

It still doesn’t necessarily sound like UFC 225 was a wild success, but perhaps it wasn’t quite as dismal a failure as it had been made out to be. The biggest, most talent laden, most interesting card the promotion has put together since at least January – and arguably in the year to date – had been reported as bringing in just 150,000 PPV buys. That put it down in the Demetrious Johnson range of post-2005 PPV flops.

Coincidentally, UFC 213, headlined by Whittaker and Romero was also reported to have only done around that same 150k mark last year. So, there was some reason to give early reports consideration.

However, following the rumors of UFC 225’s rock bottom buy-rate, the UFC has issued an official response of sorts. Speaking on behalf of the promotion, attorney Hunter Campbell told the LA Times that the 150k number originally quoted to outlet was not accurate.

UFC attorney Hunter Campbell said listing 150,000 as the number of purchases for Saturday’s event was a “material misrepresentation” of the actual buys and short by “something in excess of six figures,” but declined to provide an actual figure.

That doesn’t give any more precise an estimate of what the total PPV buys for the Chicago event may have been. But, assuming that the “something in excess of six figures” means somewhere between 100-200k and not off into the millions, that would still put UFC 225 right in line with the rest of the estimates for 2018 – of which 380,000 for UFC 220 appears to be the highest so far.

The UFC returns to PPV next month, on July 7th, in Las Vegas, NV. Where heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic will defend his belt against light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier. Featherweight champion Max Holloway is expected to defend his title in the co-main event against Brian Ortega. And fights featuring Francis Ngannou, Anthony Pettis, and Gokhan Saki round out the main card. Hopefully all that will be enough to cause a real spike in the promotion’s PPV market, otherwise 2018 may echo 2014 as one of the lowest selling years in the UFC’s recent history.