Mayweather vs McGregor: Gate big, but well short of all-time record

Claims that the August 26 fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor would shatter the all-time gate record were thrown around routinely while hyping the fight, but in the end they didn’t come close.

That’s not to say that the fight didn’t make big money. It did. In total, the gate drew $55,414,865.79, according to numbers released by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Though well short of a sellout — 13,094 tickets were bought for an arena set for over 20,000, with 137 comps given out — the fight drew huge money, no doubt, and is comfortably second all-time, almost three times the gate of Mayweather-Canelo, which is No. 3 on Nevada’s list.

But they came up way behind the 2015 fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, which drew $72,198,500 at the gate, and broke every money record.

The pay-per-view totals still aren’t in, but there remains some hope from Showtime that they did eclipse the 4.6 million buys for Mayweather-Pacquiao. If they didn’t, every indication is that, again, Mayweather-McGregor will have been a strong No. 2, and well ahead of the rest of the pack.