So how much money did Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor make from their surprisingly competitive blockbuster boxing match Saturday night? According to analysts and the CEO of Mayweather Promotions, so much money that Mayweather is now likely to be one of three athletes in history to earn $1 billion over his lifetime.
On Friday, the Nevada State Athletic Commission revealed that Mayweather would earn at minimum $100 million for the fight and McGregor would take in at least $30 million (nearly ten times more than his highest paid UFC fight). But with the inevitable last-minute surge in pay-per-view sales and strong ticket sales, the final take for the two athletes is believed to have dwarfed those numbers.
Experts estimate the total revenues for the fight to have reached as high as $700 million. Though the contract’s confidentiality agreement makes the exact split unknown, the NSAC’s figures confirm that Mayweather will receive a substantially higher percentage, likely a 75-25 or 70-30 split.
If the $700 million estimate is correct, according to CNN Money, Mayweather will be taking home a jaw-dropping $300 million and McGregor will have made around $100 million. Telegraph Sports estimates the total payouts to be slightly less: Mayweather making $230 million and McGregor $70 million.
As CNN Money points out, Mayweather’s final match likely puts him in position to join only two other athletes in history who have accumulated $1 billion over their lifetimes: Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.
Before the lucrative fight, Mayweather had reportedly already made $700 million over the course of his career via fight purses, endorsements, and pay-per-view sales. The estimated $300 million from the fight thus puts him in the rarefied air only experienced by Jordan and Woods.
CNN notes that while Jordan made around $93 million from his NBA contracts, his huge endorsement deals and his ownership of the Charlotte Hornets expanded his wealth ten-fold. In 2015, Forbes included Jordan for the first time in its billionaires list. Woods made the list in 2009, but has since fallen out of it. In 2016, Forbes put his net worth at a still impressive $740 million.
