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UFC’s Biggest PPV Events: What the Buy Estimates Actually Show

By TheFinanceBase Team3 min read
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There is no verified public ranking of the 10 UFC pay-per-view events that earned the most. UFC does not publish a complete event-by-event PPV revenue series, and the strongest available historical figures are reported estimates of buys—not audited revenue totals. By the best-known buy estimates, UFC 229 leads at about 2.4 million; UFC 264 is next at roughly 1.7–1.8 million.

That distinction matters: “biggest earning” can mean PPV revenue, ticket-gate revenue, or total event income. Those are different measures. The evidence supports a short ranking by reported buys, but not a defensible top 10 by earnings.

What “biggest earning” means—and what can be ranked

A PPV buy is a purchase count, not a disclosed revenue figure. Public reporting may estimate how many people bought an event, but the total received by UFC cannot be derived reliably from that number alone. Prices can vary by region and distributor, and the sources do not establish the commercial terms or revenue splits for each event.

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For that reason, this article ranks only the two events for which the supplied reporting provides a clear, comparable high-end buy estimate. It does not fill out the remaining eight places with unsourced or inconsistent figures.

The best-supported leaders by reported PPV buys

Rank by reported buys Event Reported estimate What the figure represents
1 UFC 229: Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Conor McGregor About 2.4 million Sports Business Journal described this as the believed all-time record in 2021. It is a reported estimate, not an official UFC disclosure. Sports Business Journal
2 UFC 264: Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor About 1.7–1.8 million In 2021, Dana White estimated the event at around 1.7–1.8 million buys; later reporting repeated a global estimate near 1.8 million. These are estimates, not audited sales totals. Sports Business Journal MMA Fighting

The order above is based on reported buy estimates, not revenue. The sources do not establish a consistently sourced set of ten events with comparable counts, regional scope, and reporting methods, so ranks below these two cannot be presented here as a reliable all-time list.

Why gate records are not PPV earnings

A live gate is revenue from tickets sold at the venue. It says something about attendance and ticket sales, not how much a PPV broadcast earned.

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  • UFC 306 at Sphere: UFC and Sphere Entertainment Co. announced a $22 million live gate in 2024 and called it the highest-grossing UFC event by gate. That is ticket revenue, not PPV revenue. UFC and Sphere Entertainment Co.
  • UFC 300: UFC reported a $16.5 million gate in 2024, describing it at that time as the third-highest-grossing UFC event by gate. It is not a PPV-sales total. UFC
  • UFC 229: UFC reported $17,188,894 in Las Vegas ticket revenue for the event in 2018. That gate figure is separate from the estimated 2.4 million PPV buys. UFC

These figures cannot be combined into a PPV ranking: one measures tickets, another estimates broadcast purchases. Nor should an estimated buy count be multiplied by a headline PPV price to claim event revenue; the available evidence does not establish a uniform price, regional mix, or distribution arrangement.

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Why platform records do not complete the all-time ranking

ESPN reported that seven of its ten biggest-selling UFC PPVs came in 2021. That describes sales on ESPN+, not a global, all-platform historical revenue table. A platform-specific list cannot establish which events earned the most across every distributor and region. ESPN

The result is a useful but limited answer: UFC 229 is widely reported as the buy-rate leader, and UFC 264 is the next clearly documented high-end estimate in the cited reporting. Publicly available evidence here does not support naming the other eight events in a ranked list of biggest PPV earners.

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Written by TheFinanceBase Team

The Team behind TheFinanceBase.

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