Almost every source you'll find on the web states that Conor McGregor made in excess of $100 million to fight Floyd Mayweather in the boxing ring last year. I'm a little skeptical personally, as I believe this narrative is one that sounds cool, but isn't based in reality, let me elaborate.
Floyd Mayweather has had several fights in his career where he made a reported $100 million, including sponsorship, royalties, PPV cut etc. fights such as Alvarez, Pacquiao and now McGregor. I struggle to believe that Conor McGregor on his first go-around, with the UFC looming over his agency rights was able to make $100 million.
Supposedly this fight made $700 million in total revenue, what that consists of exactly, we will never know, but let's just take that figure at face value for a moment.
People act like Mayweather promotions is literally just Floyd, he promotes the whole event, he rents the venue, he pays the licensing fees etc. etc. etc. this is simply untrue. Leonard Ellerbe is a key factor in Mayweather promotions and is a very wealthy man at this stage, you can definitely be sure that he makes a cut of that money as head promoter. Then you have to consider the mystery man Al Haymon, there is no coincidence that he has relationships with several high-level boxers and there is no coincidence that they all thank him after their bouts. Al is supposedly a very wealthy investor who helps these events become the size that they are, he and Floyd are essentially silent partners in the boxing PPV business. You think Al isn't taking a 10-20% cut, if not more? That alone would be 70-140 million, throw that in with Ellerbe's money which would probably be slightly less (perhaps 10-15%) and you've already chopped almost half the money before paying Conor or Floyd.
What about Showtime? You think Stephen Espinoza and company didn't make a dime off of the fight? Those guys were the main broadcaster and therefore they surely made a hefty sum themselves, lets say that it was 20%, that means that a whole lot more of the pot has been eaten into.
Then we get to the UFC, the company that supposedly "wasn't allowed to promote the event". Supposedly they were not promoters of this event "legally" and therefore they weren't going to financially benefit. That idea is asinine my friends, Dana White himself probably made 5% just for brokering the deal, never mind how much WME took on the whole.
Then we are left with Floyd and Conor. Supposedly Floyd made $300 million and Conor made $100 million. So you mean to tell me that a fight which supposedly made $700 million dollars paid the fighters the lion share and the big corporate folks only took the other 30-40%? I personally believe that Floyd may have earned less than reported and Conor most definitely made less than $100 million.
Don't get me wrong, if Conor made $30 million, it's still his biggest paycheck ever and it was still a great move financially, but do not be misled here. What about Kavanagh's paycheck? What about Roddy's paycheck? What about the sparring partners? What about renting Joe Cortez's refereeing services? What about the taxman? This guy would have lost at least 20-30% just on expenditures.
All that said, I'm not anyone's accountant but I can smell BS when I see it.
