McGregor-Holloway’s 69-second UFC bout draws 6.5 million viewers
Paramount+ said UFC's July 11 main card peaked at 8 million concurrent streams across the U.S. and Latin America.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
2 min read
Conor McGregor and Max Holloway were in the cage for just 69 seconds, and Paramount+ still pulled a heavyweight streaming number from their UFC headliner.
UFC’s July 11 main card averaged 6.5 million viewers across the United States and Latin America on Paramount+, according to Variety. The broadcast was built around McGregor’s welterweight bout with Holloway, a rematch of their 2013 meeting.
The two-and-a-half-hour telecast peaked at 8 million concurrent streams, Paramount+ said. According to the streamer, that makes it bigger than any other exclusive live event in its history.
Paramount+ said the only live event above it on the service was Super Bowl LVIII, which also aired on CBS.
The card was staged in Las Vegas and featured five bouts on the main card, according to Variety. The McGregor-Holloway matchup closed the show, though it ended far earlier than a typical main event.
A Getty Images caption from the bout described McGregor falling after sustaining an injury on a kick in the first round at T-Mobile Arena. Variety reported the fight lasted 69 seconds.
The streamer also reported a wider reach figure for the event: 15.9 million total viewers. Variety said that metric counts unique people who watched at least one minute of the broadcast at any point.
Those numbers put the McGregor-Holloway card near another recent UFC streaming draw. Variety reported that the White House’s “UFC Freedom 250” broadcast in June averaged 8.2 million viewers across the United States and Latin America and reached 17 million total viewers.
The comparison gives Paramount+ another data point in a busy stretch for live sports on streaming. UFC’s July event did not match the June broadcast’s average or total reach, according to the figures reported by Variety, but it delivered the streamer’s top mark for an exclusive live event by concurrent streams.
For UFC, the headline bout brought together two of its most recognizable names. McGregor and Holloway last fought each other in 2013, and their latest meeting was positioned as the climax of the Las Vegas main card.
The fight itself was over in barely more than a minute. The audience number, according to Paramount+, ran much longer.
This story draws on original reporting from Variety.