Wilder-Fury II Reportedly Generated Over 800,000 PPV Buys

Not only was the rematch between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury a success for the fighters involved, but the overall numbers don’t seem that bad when first looking at them.

According to to Mike Coppinger of The Athletic, Wilder v. Fury 2 managed to generate over 800,000 North American PPV buys. That would be the best heavyweight title viewing since Mike Tyson v. Lennox Lewis in 2002, which drew over 1.97 million.

This is more or less what I’m hearing, too.

Digital buys—ESPN-plus, Fox Sports App—overperformed.

Traditional cable, DTV did not.

Privately, officials hoped for 1 to 1.1 millions, effectively break even numbers. https://t.co/c2Z1OIjgZW

— Chris Mannix (@SIChrisMannix) February 27, 2020

The first fight between Fury and Wilder, which ended in a split decision draw, was shown on Showtime programming. At $74.99, the fight generated 325,000 buys. The price for this event was about $79.99 as well a subscription to various streaming services. With EPSN+ and FOX programming,  the way to view fights has changed. Rumors are that Wilder and Fury are both guaranteed at least $25 million for the fight, as well as a cut of the PPV numbers.

Top Rank’s Bob Arum was expecting over 2 million buys. This would have been thought as believable due to the amount of coverage the fight got. It may take a while for overall numbers to appear in regards to total viewership.

This goes off of the report from BoxingScene that the undercard aspect of the fight night generated 1.42 million viewers.

The highest number of PPV buys in the United States for a heavyweight boxing fight was in 1997 when Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson fought. Known for Tyson biting the ear of Holyfield, the numbers for that fight reached around 1,990,000.