UFC 252 buy rate revealed: Fourth-highest selling PPV of 2020

Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier concluded their trilogy at UFC 252 - with the Croatian-American Heavyweight Champion retaining the title in a unanimous decision victory.

UFC 252 wasn't that big a card in itself minus the headliner, especially since Sean O'Malley was in the co-headliner spot. Perhaps UFC 252 felt that Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier's trilogy was enough to seal the deal.

According to Sports Business Journal's John Ourand (Via Aaron Bronsteter of TSN), UFC 252 got more than 500,000 PPV buys worldwide - which is the fourth-highest this year:

Per @Ourand_SBJ, UFC 252 drew the fourth-most buys of any UFC event in 2020.UFC 252 sold more than 500,000 buys worldwide and roughly 400,000 in the US on ESPN+ per Ourand.The report states that the three events with bigger numbers were UFC 246, UFC 251 and UFC 249.

— Aaron Bronsteter (@aaronbronsteter) August 20, 2020

UFC 246 was headlined by Conor McGregor vs Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone - pulling off an estimated 1 million PPV buys. UFC 249, headlined by Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje had an estimated 700,000 buys.

However, it was UFC 251 at Fight Island that was the biggest surprise. The PPV, headlined by Jorge Masvidal and Kamaru Usman (also including two other title fights) pulled off a whopping 1.3 million PPV buys - the highest since UFC 229 headlined by Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov.

How did UFC 252 fare compared to the other two fights in the trilogy?

The first meeting between Daniel Cormier and Stipe Miocic took place at UFC 226 and did an estimated 380,000 buys. While the buy rate for their second meeting at UFC 241 wasn't known, it was assumed to be lower since it was when ESPN+ had taken over and was the medium to buy UFC PPVs.

UFC 252 was the best of the trilogy in terms of PPV buy rate - perhaps added to the fact that it was Daniel Cormier's retirement fight. After UFC 252, we will see a double-header at UFC 253 featuring a fight for the vacant Light Heavyweight Championship and the undisputed Middleweight Championship - it's expected to take place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.