Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury 2 Estimated At 800-850k Buys
The pay-per-view (PPV) buy estimates are in for the rematch between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury.
Fury defeated Wilder via seventh-round TKO this past weekend in what was arguably the biggest boxing fight in recent memory. And according to The Athletic’s Mike Coppinger, the heavyweight title bout clocked in at approximately 800,000 to 850,000 PPV buys.
“””Sources: The rematch between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury generated in the neighborhood of approxmately 800,000 to 850,000 pay-per-view buys in North America. Best performance – by far – for a heavyweight title fight since Tyson-Lewis in 2002. Wilder-Fury 1 sold around 325K buys.”
Those are very good numbers, especially given that the first fight between the pair sold around 325,000 buys. However, given context, it is not as impressive at first glance.
While Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix backed up those estimates, he notes that officials were hoping for 1 million to 1.1 million buys to effectively break even. It should be added that both Wilder and Fury were also guaranteed $25 million purses in addition to a cut of the PPV.
And given how much promotion the fight received from ESPN and FOX, there was certainly a belief that it could have done just that.
Regardless, those are big numbers — the most a heavyweight title fight has done in the United States since 2002 — and shows that pay-per-view is not dead.
Whether a trilogy fight would be able to replicate or exceed those estimates remains to be seen, however.
What do you think of the Wilder vs. Fury 2 PPV estimates?
