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Jake Paul vs Nate Diaz did very well on pay per view (PPV) selling over 450,000 buys and earning “nearly $27 million” according to Dan Raphael. But for those into comparing these things, it didn’t match UFC 292, headlined by Sean O’Malley taking Aljamain Sterling’s bantamweight title which may or may not have sold more than 500,000 buys and earned more than $38 million.
As reported by Bloody Elbow, Nate Diaz had a 50-50 split with Jake Paul for this event guaranteeing a career high purse, and taking a big cut of that massive PPV revenue. Nate Diaz also has a cut of all the other revenue, including the strong gate numbers.
Jake Paul vs Nate Diaz was big but not the biggest
Paul vs Diaz was a strong performer both at the gate where they sold out the American Airlines Center in Dallas, earning $3.1 million and drawing more than 20,000 paying customers. Paul’s previous fight against Tommy Fury in February was handicapped on PPV according to Raphael’s analysis by being held in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia which meant it aired mid-day in the U.S.
“Just to share, we had a gate of $3.1 million, making this the No. 2 combat sports event in American Airlines Center history,” according to a post-fight statement by Jake Paul’s business partner, Nakisa Bidarian.
“That includes six UFC pay-per-view events. The only event to have done better than us was one after the pandemic, obviously, which was the last pay-per-view here. So very proud of Jake and Nate for what they accomplished.”
Considering that Paul is a neophyte boxer whose experience has mostly come against MMA fighters with even less pro boxing experience that’s pretty impressive. Nonetheless his numbers don’t come close to the biggest bouts of the year.
For comparison, April’s 136-pound catchweight bout between Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Ryan Garcia did over 1.2 million PPV buys at $84.99 per and earned more than $100 million in U.S. buys. Similarly, last month’s Errol Spence Jr.-Terence Crawford undisputed welterweight championship fight did at least 650,000 (and maybe as many as 675,000) buys for a take of $55 million on PPV.
UFC 292 also a strong performer but not the strongest
The UFC is more opaque with its bookkeeping but it’s estimated that UFC 292 drew another $10 million in gateway income (ticket sales, merchandise, etc) on top of its PPV take.
UFC 285 featuring Jon Jones’ debut bout at heavyweight — in which he choked out Ciryl Gane in the first round to claim the promotion’s empty heavyweight title — is estimated to have done much more, but with UFC and ESPN not really revealing PPV numbers these days, it’s really hard to trust any of the online sources sharing their figures.
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