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The long-term success of Conor McGregor’s popularity following his UFC 257 loss to Dustin Poirier won’t be known for a while. But according to social media statistics released after last Saturday’s pay-per-view event, he remains – and will remain – a huge star.
Rating firm Nielsen Sports recently reported on several metrics generated by the lightweight bout, which ended in a second round knockout loss for McGregor. Much of the buzz generated by this setback was directed towards the former star of the two divisions, whose number of engagements (22.7 million) was almost 10 times higher than Poirier (2.3 million) on their profiles of social media in the rise of the fight.
McGregor also outscored Poirier in mentions by a factor of 1.7, scoring 76,000 on the fight week and 49,000 during the event.
“The conversation online centered around McGregor losing, not Poirier winning,” Nielsen Sports’ Spencer Nolan wrote in a press release. “This tells us that to win or lose, he remains a central figure who has transcended an entire sport.”
Evidence of McGregor’s box office popularity can be seen in the pay-per-view numbers of UFC 257. Although the fight promotion does not publicly publish buy rates and they are impossible to independently verify, the event was reportedly purchased by 1.6 million customers at a price of $ 69.99 for $ 111,984,000 in revenue. The UFC uses social media metrics to gauge potential buy rates, and with 43 million engagements and nearly 100,000 mentions during Fight Week, it was clear the promotion was having success.
While UFC 257 suffered from massive online outages resulting in partial refunds, the event was indeed a smash success, eclipsed only by McGregor’s successful showdown with lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229. , which would have reported 2.4 million purchases.
Interest in a rematch between McGregor and Nurmagomedov provided a footnote to last Saturday’s fight. According to Nielsen, there were 12,000 discussions over a three-day period where the names of the two fighters were dropped. McGregor has 56 million social media followers compared to 31 million Nurmagomedovs.
One metric where Poirier managed to beat McGregor was in the social media followers added on fight week, picking up 520,000 against McGregor’s 439,000.
And in arguably the most important measure – the outcome of the fight – Poirier was the big winner, landing a flurry of punches to send McGregor to the canvas.
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