UFC 259 brings in 800,000 PPV buys, next ABC card announced

Despite both Houston and Dallas, Texas, declining to host UFC shows for the time being, the organization continues to get good news in terms of both PPV buys and wider exposure.

Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand reported Wednesday that this past Saturday’s UFC 259, headlined by Jan Blachowicz vs. Israel Adesanya in a champion vs. champion fight, generated 800,000 pay-per-view buys worldwide. 600,000 of those were from the U.S. on ESPN+ with another 200,000 internationally.

The show featured two other title fights in addition to Adesanya vs. Blachowicz with both the men’s bantamweight title and women’s featherweight championships on the line.

While numbers weren’t revealed for February’s UFC 258 (welterweight champion Kamaru Usman vs. Gilbert Burns), January’s UFC 257 headlined by Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier brought in 1.6 million worldwide buys.

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On Thursday, UFC announced their Saturday, April 10th show will be on both ABC and ESPN+ with the main card starting at 3 PM Eastern opposite The Masters golf tournament.

Darren Till vs. Marvin Vettori in a clash of middleweight contenders is the headliner with Mackenzie Dern vs. Nina Ansaroff and Sodiq Yusuff vs. Arnold Allen also slated for the show. 

Opposite an NFL playoff game, UFC debuted on ABC in January with an afternoon show that saw Max Holloway dominate Calvin Katter in the main event — a show that averaged 1.2 million viewers. At the time, Ourand reported the number convinced ABC executives to find more opportunities to feature UFC on the network.