UFC 261 brings in more than 700,000 buys on ESPN+

According to Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand, last Saturday’s UFC 261 did more than 700,000 pay-per-view buys domestically on ESPN+.

The number doesn’t include any international buys which typically comes with Ourand’s reporting.

The show was headlined by three title fights with welterweight champion Kamaru Usman defeating Jorge Masvidal by knockout in their main event rematch. The entire main card turned out to be newsworthy including Rose Namajunas reclaiming the strawweight title with a knockout of Zhang Weili and former middleweight champion Chris Weidman snapping his leg on a kick to Uriah Hall seven years after Anderson Silva broke his own leg delivering a kick to Weidman.

The Jacksonville, Florida, event was also the first to be held in front of a full crowd since before the pandemic.

Ourand had previously reported UFC 259 (Jan Blachowicz vs. Israel Adesanya) did 800,000 buys worldwide (600,000 domestic) while January’s UFC 257 (Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier) did 1.6 million buys worldwide (1.2 million domestic). Ourand didn’t report numbers for UFC 258 or UFC 260.

The UFC and ESPN will look to keep their hot streak going with UFC 262 on Saturday, May 15, headlined by Michael Chandler vs. Charles Oliveira for the vacant lightweight title.