When Disney CEO revealed that Conor McGregor had boosted ESPN+ subscriptions by 1 million with a 40-second performance

Conor McGregor faced Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone at the highest-grossing UFC pay-per-view of 2020.

A couple of weeks after Conor McGregor had made his triumphant comeback to UFC with a 40-second knockout of 'Cowboy' Cerrone, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that they gained one million subscribers ahead of UFC 246.

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Bob Iger: Conor McGregor boosted ESPN+ subscriptions by one million

The Walt Disney Co., who owns 80% of ESPN, announced the renewed subscriber counts for their major OTT platforms - Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu in their annual first-quarter call back in February.

Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, said that the latest numbers for ESPN+, where users can stream UFC PPVs, had gone up by one million from 6.6 million to 7.6 million between then and the end of the last quarter. Iger cited the Conor McGregor fight as the reason behind the huge spike.

And Iger says the current number for ESPN+ is actually 7.6 million (the 6.6 million was at the end of the quarter), as another bump has come in largely thanks to the McGregor fight.

— Eric Fisher (@EricFisherSBG) February 4, 2020

The event in question also became the highest-grossing UFC event of the year, selling north of 1.35 million PPVs. UFC 251 came a close second with 1.3 million buys.

Conor McGregor himself earned a handsome amount from the fight. It was only his second professional outing since the Floyd Mayweather Money Fight, where he made in the region of $130 million.

Before the fight, Conor McGregor sat down with ESPN's Ariel Helwani for an interview, where he revealed that he had made $50 million for fighting Khabib Nurmagomedov. For fighting Cerrone, he was expecting $80 million or so.

"We’ve got a good deal. Very happy. Very excited to see how it unfolds, right? Like I said, this is a new setup with it, but I’m confident it’s gonna be a good and nice paycheck. I’m estimating a good $80 million. Like I said, we got Australia, Canada, and England and Ireland. It should be a good one."

"They think I’m toast, Ariel, but I’m still the bread."

Ahead of headlining yet another pay-per-view, Conor McGregor shared Iger's comments from nearly a year ago.

He captioned the post "Almost that time again", implying that UFC 257 on January 23 will be an equally successful event.

Conor McGregor will face fellow lightweight contender Dustin Poirier in the main event of UFC 257, which many fans believe should be for the lightweight belt, now that Khabib Nurmagomedov has retired.

The bout will take place at 155 pounds. With a win in this fight, Conor McGregor would have secured two consecutive victories since his loss to Khabib in 2018.