Big Money: How Much Cash Will UFC 194 Roll In?

As this Saturday’s (December 12, 2015) blockbuster UFC 194 pay-per-view from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, draws near, the hype and speculation for quite possibly the year’s biggest MMA card is about to reach an all-time high.

In a huge bounce-back 12 months for the UFC, 2015 has seen some absolutely huge events like UFC 189 and UFC 193 that both brought in some huge numbers in live gate and pay-per-view sales. Those figures no doubt resulted in some lucrative paydays for the main event fighters, and both 189 and 193 are going to be tough to beat.

However, anything is possible when Jose Aldo meets Conor McGregor, and with a Chris Weidman vs. Luke Rockhold middleweight title affair in the co-main event to boot. Top to bottom, this event is arguably the finest ever put together on paper. That means that it’s obviously going to bring in windfalls of cash for the UFC.

Let’s take a look at just how much cash UFC 194 truly might make in terms of live gate, pay-per-view (PPV) buys, and fighter salaries for McGregor and Aldo.

3.) Gate:

Aldo vs. McGregor is truly one of the most anticipated fights in UFC history, so it’s no surprise that UFC 194 is going to bring in a potentially record-setting gate.

McGregor said UFC 189 will bring in million and it did, so UFC President Dana White recently speculated that the UFC 194 gate would be as high as million during a Q&A session at November’s UFC 193 (via MMA Junkie):

“This gate’s at $9 million for the Aldo-McGregor fight,” White said of UFC 194. “And people, every time I bump in to people, they’re like, ‘I got tickets!’ I’m like, ‘How the hell did you get tickets to that?’ It’s a tough fight to get tickets to.”

To compare, UFC 193 did a huge gate in Australia, setting the UFC’s all-time live attendance record with 56,214 fans for a live gate of $6.8 million USD. Built up by the hype of Aldo’s withdrawal and late replacement by Chad Mendes, July’s UFC 189 actually beat that number with a healthy $7.2 million earlier this year.

The UFC’s all-time gate record is possessed by April 2011’s historic UFC 129 from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, earning $11 million USD. Ranking just above UFC 193 and just below UFC 189, July 2012’s UFC 148 featuring the highly anticipated middleweight rematch between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen drew $6.9 million in Las Vegas.

If White’s predictions are correct, UFC 194 will come in as the second biggest UFC live gate of all-time.

2.) Pay-per-view buyrate:

This one’s a bit harder to tally given the UFC doesn’t release exact financial numbers like pay-per-view buyrates as it does attendance and gate figures.

Using the estimated PPV buyrates of this year’s most successful cards, UFC 189 brought in a reported one million buys, and soon thereafter White said that UFC 190, which rocketed Rousey to superstardom after she knocked out Bethe Correia in Brazil, did even more buys.

The numbers were ramped up for Rousey’s next fight, which brought in a lofty 1.3 million buys according to industry reports. That put it in illustrious company as the UFC’s second-highest drawing PPV event of all-time to the legendary UFC 100 card.

While there is no guarantee that UFC 194 will meet or eclipse those big numbers, there’s certainly a good chance that it at least approaches, if not surpasses, them. There’s no denying Aldo vs. McGregor is the biggest featherweight fight of all-time, and many are predicting Weidman vs. Rockhold will be the best middleweight fight of all-time. That’s certainly a recipe for PPV success, although the UFC’s packed schedule leading up to the event may be a factor in how many buys UFC 194 actually does.

There are three cards in three days leading up to the spectacle, and that could either leave casual fans burnt out on MMA, or two great cards leading in to Aldo vs. McGregor could motivate them to keep momentum rolling and buy UFC 194 without a second thought.

To put it in simple math terms, if UFC 194 does 1,000,000 PPV buys as expected, the UFC would make a staggering $60,000,000 at a price of $60 per buy. Somehow hit 1,500,000 buys, and they’d make $90,000,000 before expenses.

Not a bad day at the office.

1.) Fighter Salaries:

Another figure that will be largely unquantifiable because of the discretionary and sometimes large locker room bonuses the UFC gives fighters who perform impressively and the unknown PPV cuts that a few elite fighters receive, Aldo and McGregor’s paydays will be large, but how large?

That will obviously depend largely on the success of the pay-per-view buyrate, as well. A recent report from Total Sportek reported that McGregor will make $500,000 to face Aldo, while the champ will bring in $300,000 for the pivotal fight. Both reportedly have an extra $250,000 bonus in their respective contracts.

The pay-per-view cut is where it gets interesting, however. The report stated McGregor would make $3 for every buy above 300,000 and $4 or $5 for every buy after 700,000. It’d be hard to imagine that Aldo doesn’t have a similar kind of split as an elite headlining champion, although he’s never come close to drawing the kind of numbers McGregor does on pay-per-view.

If McGregor wins at UFC 194 and the card does 1.3 million buys like UFC 193, for example, that’d net ‘Notorious’ almost $5 million at $4,950,000. Aldo would net only slightly less at $4,750,000 in a reverse situation, but his PPV cut could be significantly less than McGregor’s.

Regardless, “Junior” will come out of this one a lot richer. The longtime champ has said that McGregor is making him money, signifying he knows that his biggest-ever payday is about to arrive, and it will be a lucrative one.

Again, not a bad day at the office. Any way you slice it, UFC 194 is set to be one of the highest-grossing UFC PPVs of all-time.