Perhaps Conor McGregor had a point when he claimed the UFC owed him a billion from its $4bn sale to WWE-IMG.
The Notorious is far and away the biggest draw on the company's roster and has been so ever since he dismantled Jose Aldo in 13 seconds, at UFC 194, to claim the featherweight strap. In November, he picked Eddie Alvarez apart to claim the lightweight title.
McGregor is over three years into his UFC career but he has been a big draw for the past two years [defeating Dustin Poirier at UFC 178].
The promotion has claimed UFC 202, which featured McGregor's victory over Nate Diaz, reached over a million pay-per-view buys. Final figures are set to be confirmed but UFC 202 is set to be the fifth biggest earner in the promotion's history [100, 194, 196 and 200 took in more PPV money].
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All that was topped by UFC 205, in November, which
earned a reported 1.4m pay-per-view buys. At the press conference before his win over Alvarez, McGregor claimed he would make well in advance of $40m from his three fights in 2016.
Four of the six events that got over a million PPV buys were headlined by McGregor. The other was Ronda Rouey's shock loss to Holly Holm [193] and Brock Lesnar's highly-publicised, controversial return against Mark Hunt [200].
However, when gate receipts and PPV numbers are added up, McGregor reigns supreme. UFC 196 took in $8.1m on the gate and was just shy over 1.5m PPVs. UFC 202's gate receipts were $7.6m and it is projected to near 1.1m PPVs.
The gate receipts for UFC 205, at Madison Square Garden, were a whopping $17.7m. As Dana White declared, soon after, "Jesus is going to have to fight the Devil to break that record."
According to Patrick Wyman of
Bleacher Report, back in August, McGregor's first two headlined events of 2016 made the promotion $100m. Add in UFC 205 and we are talking about $160m.
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15% of the UFC's total revenue if the year finishes on pace with 2015's returns [it had an American total of 7.7m PPV buys]. Again, with UFC 205 taken into consideration, that should be well over 20% of the promotion's annual revenue.
McGregor has yet to have a proper sit down with the UFC's new management team. He told
The MMA Hour before his August win over Diaz that he had been approached by Ari Emanuel, the UFC's new chief executive. McGregor commented:
"[Emanuel] said 'You think you've made a lot of money now kid? We're going to make you a lot more.
"I thought 'Who the f**k is that guy?'"
Since then, he has won the lightweight belt, been stripped of his featherweight title, declared he was taking time off to become a father, gained a State of California boxing licence and made the UFC a mountain of money.
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The contract negotiations should be interesting, to say the least.
*Updated from piece first published on August 26
