While there’s a lot of legitimate questions regarding how competitive a Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor boxing match will be, there’s no doubt that it’s going to make giant piles of money. How much money? Well, probably not as much as Conor McGregor might like. The Irish UFC champion speculated that the bout could be the first billion dollar fight in the history of the world, which would be impressive indeed considering the current title holder for biggest fight, Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, earned an estimated 623.5 million in revenue.
That number comes from ESPN, and they did a similar estimate on how much money Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather will make. Here’s the breakdown:
- Ticket sales: $77.1 million
- Pay-Per-View sales: $475 million
- Sponsorship sales: $22 million
- Merchandise sales: $2 million
- Betting amount: $30 million
Total: $606.1 million
A little below their estimate for the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight, mainly off the lack of juice in betting volume. That’s a result of the fight being so lopsided in terms of odds, with Mayweather a 25-1 favorite. That’s not going to attract many bettors, and even die hard McGregor fans aren’t expected to throw large sums of money at sportsbooks in the hopes their hero can beat the best boxer in the world.
But these estimates do have McGregor vs. Mayweather selling more PPVs, which is impressive considering Mayweather vs. Pacquiao sold 4.6 million at $100 a pop. There’s no official price for Mayweather vs. McGregor, but the price is expected to be in a similar range.
As for how much each fighter is expected to make, that question won’t be known until a contract is signed and a purse split is agreed to. When Mayweather and Pacquiao fought in 2015, it was with a 60-40 split in Floyd’s favor. That led to Mayweather making somewhere in the region of $225 million and Pacquiao making $150 million.
Recently, UFC president Dana White has said he’s aiming for a 50-50 split on the strength of Conor’s international appeal and the UFC’s promotional machine. But in an earlier interview he conceded that Floyd might make a bit more. He estimated potential earnings at $100 million for Floyd and $75 million for Conor … but he also had his pay-per-view estimates sitting around 2.5 to 3 million buys.
One last thing to keep in mind when talking about how much McGregor will make for the Floyd Mayweather fight: the UFC is going to end up taking a decent chunk of money from his side of the equation. We don’t know exactly how much, but it could be $25 million or higher. Keep in mind a contract for the fight hasn’t been signed yet, so we’re sure a lot of the numbers regarding money will become clearer as the fight approaches. But these estimates give you an idea just how much cash is set to be made when boxing and UFC greats collide.
