The Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor megafight is on pace to become an unprecedented success in revenue and viewership, according to the UFC's president and the co-president of the promotion's parent company.
"This is the biggest event that has ever happened in combat sports," Dana White, speaking to reporters on a conference call, said Wednesday of the fight that will take place Aug. 26 in Las Vegas. "This fight will reach over a billion homes worldwide."
White said the over/under on total pay-per-view buys is 4.9 million, which would be 300,000 buys more than the record for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight in 2015.
"Everything is tracking right now like we're going to kill this thing," White said.
McGregor, who has previously said he will top $100 million, said he has been told that records in all sectors will be broken. His plan after the fight is to "relax on my yacht and begin the counting game."
Neither McGregor nor his agent Audie Attar, had any updates on any new partnerships struck, including what brand gloves or boots he will wear. Last week, McGregor made deals with Monster and BetSafe that will get the companies' logos on his fight trucks.
With 10 days before the fight, no sponsor of the fight itself, including the primary sponsor, which will get its logo inside the ring has been announced.
But Mark Shapiro, co-president of WME/IMG, said his company, which owns the UFC, is "closing the books end of week" on deals, he said in an interview with ESPN.
Shapiro also told ESPN that ticket sales, said last week to be greater than $60 million, "is imminently trending to a record-setting level for combat sports, and next week's prefight hype will only stir the drink further."
"It's impossible for us to not break the record," said Shapiro, referring to the $72.2 million gate from Mayweather-Pacquiao.
While the ticket prices for the two events are nearly identical, this fight is in T-Mobile Arena, which has 3,000 seats more than Mayweather-Pacquiao.
On the secondary market, demand isn't the same.
StubHub said it sold more than four times the amount of tickets to Mayweather-Pacquiao ten days out versus Mayweather-McGregor and at more than $1,000 difference in average ticket sold ($4,456 for Mayweather-Pacquiao vs. $3,452 for Mayweather-McGregor).