Unlikely Hip-Hop Star Convinces Dana White to Reveal the Amount of PPV Buys for McGregor-Mayweather Fight

During a conversation with rapper Snoop Dogg, UFC president Dana White spilled the details on how many pay-per-view buys there were for this past Saturday’s fight between Conor McGregor–Floyd Mayweather Jr.

A new video circulating on social media shows White saying that the highly anticipated bout between the Irish MMA superstar and the undefeated boxing legend racked up more than 6.5 million PPV buys. Given that it cost $100 to watch the fight, this alone means that there were more than half a billion dollars brought in for the fight simply from PPV.

According to White, the fight was a major success in terms of revenue. However, there were reports that the TV audiences weren’t pleased with the experience. In fact, Showtime network is facing a class action lawsuit from customers who claim they had streaming issues throughout the fight, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Portland boxing fan Zack Bartel said that he paid $99 to watch the fight on the Showtime app but it was “grainy video, error screens, buffer events, and stalls.”

He is now seeking monetary damages for the situation and is suing Showtime for unlawful trade practices and unjust enrichment.

“Instead of being upfront with consumers about its new, untested, underpowered service, defendant caused likelihood of confusion and misunderstanding as to the source and quality of the HD video consumers would see on fight night,” his attorney, Michael Fuller, said in the complaint.

“Defendant intentionally misrepresented the quality and grade of video consumers would see using its app, and knowingly failed to disclose that its system was defective with respect to the amount of bandwidth available, and that defendant’s service would materially fail to conform to the quality of HD video defendant promised,” Fuller continued.

Showtime has come back and said that they will provide refunds for people that experienced technical issues. However, the customers need to provide evidence.

“We have received very limited number of complaints overall,” said Chris DeBlasio, senior VP of communications for Showtime Sports. “We are reviewing all of them carefully and will respond to them accordingly.”