Editor’s Note: Pay-per-view once defined big-ticket sports. Now it may be on life support. We’ve teamed up with StreamScoop to dig into the numbers, the history, and the streaming-era shift that reshaped UFC, WWE, and beyond. Their analysis asks the key question: did streaming kill PPV or simply reinvent it?
Pay-per-view is a model where audiences pay for access to a single event, most often in sports.
For decades it has been a cornerstone of combat sports and sports entertainment including boxing, MMA, and professional wrestling. The model helped drive marquee matchups, fund top talent, and position major events as premium, must-see spectacles.
A brief history & major data points:
- In the 1950s, experimental television systems like Zenith’s Phonevision and Telemeter tested early pay-per-view models.
- The 1974 Rumble in the Jungle was reportedly watched by hundreds of millions worldwide, with some estimates reaching up to 1 billion and grossed an estimated $100 million (about $640 million today). The following year, the final Mohammed Ali – Joe Frazier bout, the Thrilla in Manila (1975), drew a global audience of over 1 billion, including 100 million via closed-circuit television and 500,000 pay-per-view purchases on HBO.
- The World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) launched WrestleMania in 1985, headlined by Hulk Hogan. The event attracted more than 1 million viewers on closed-circuit television and earned $12 million through pay-per-view, ticket sales, and merchandise.
- After struggling in the 1990s, the UFC experienced major growth in the 2000s and 2010s. Its biggest event came in 2016, headlined by Conor McGregor, which drew 1.65 million pay-per-view purchases.
- The COVID-19 pandemic caused stoppage of all major sports and ultimately has forever changed users’ viewing habits.
The Modern Era of PPV
The UFC has seen ebbs and flows of popularity in the 2000s and 2010s, but the average pay-per-view purchases have been considerably larger and more consistent than during the 1990s.
The UFC experienced explosive growth in the 2000s and 2010s, driven by marquee matchups and star power.
- 2006: UFC 66 (Liddell vs. Ortiz 2) drew over 1 million PPV buys.
- 2009: UFC 100 (Lesnar vs. St-Pierre) became a landmark event with roughly 1.6 million purchases.
- 2016: UFC 202 (Diaz vs. McGregor 2) attracted 1.65 million buys.
- 2018: UFC 229 (Nurmagomedov vs. McGregor) set the UFC record at 2.4 million buys.
- 2021: UFC 257 (Poirier vs. McGregor 2) sustained momentum with 1.6 million buys.
The UFC’s pivot was supported by its production hub, the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, and “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi, a bio-secure bubble for international fighters during COVID-19.
The WWE also found success with the PPV model in the 21st century. Data compiled by reporter Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics highlights several standout events:
- 2010s: Multiple PPVs crossed the $1 million revenue mark.
- Average: Domestic PPVs earned just over $9 million, led by WrestleMania.
- WrestleMania (various years): Consistently delivered the highest buys and revenues, cementing its status as the sport’s “Super Bowl.”
Using the pricing information, we can extrapolate an estimated domestic PPV revenue. On average, these PPVs earned just over $9 million, led by the sport’s “Super Bowl,” WrestleMania.
But WWE must have seen the writing on the wall, as they began transitioning away from the PPV model to premium live events (PLEs). In 2014, WWE started exclusively streaming its NXT events on the WWE Network and gradually increased the number of premium events available on streaming. WWE later entered an agreement with Peacock, with PLEs streaming exclusively on the service.
But even boxing, the sport most closely tied to the pay-per-view model, is now entering the streaming era too. In 2023, Netflix announced it would host its first live boxing event featuring Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson, signaling a dramatic shift for a sport once defined by closed-circuit TV and cable PPV. At this point Netflix has hosted a few events including the Paul-led bout, AND Taylor vs. Serrano 2 & 3.
International digital streamer DAZN has continued to use the PPV model.
But How Profitable Was The PPV Model?
Both the UFC and WWE have continued to see revenue gains throughout the decade, but it would be foolish to attribute them to the PPV model. In fact, analyzing both companies’ yearly revenue shows a massive uptick around the mid- to late-2010s, coinciding with the industry’s shift to digital.
In the early 2000s to early 2010s, the WWE was beginning to tread water, not from a creative standpoint, but from a financial one. Sure, there were some revenue gains during this time period(notably 2008), but nothing major. The increases seemingly began to stagnate at a certain point; this must have been the evidence they saw to push them into the digital landscape.
The WWE has averaged 9.7% in yearly revenue growth since 2014, doing a phenomenal job of shifting from the PPV model to digital. This included establishing and growing the WWE’s YouTube page, which is still one of the largest on the platform, and moving PLEs to a streaming service, either their own WWE Network or, later, Peacock. Even though the WWE had some events that generated major revenue through the PPV model, it began to grow stale, as shown by the overall declines in the graph above, particularly the year before the company fully embraced digital (2014).
As seen above, the UFC did earn some major revenue using the PPV model, and data from Statista shows substantial growth in their PPV buys per event in comparison to the early 2000s. These PPV buys help illustrate the UFC’s revenues, which saw consistent year-over-year growth. However, examining the financial graph below shows relatively slow overall revenue growth, which was likely a red flag for the UFC.
When we analyze the graph below, created by Wrestlenomics, we can see precisely how much TKO Group earned in revenue compared to expenses. This gives us a full picture of their financials from last year, and one key takeaway for both companies is that media rights make up a large share of their revenue. Moreover, ESPN’s contract accounts for the majority of the UFC’s media revenue. At the same time, NBCUniversal (Peacock’s parent company) represents most of WWE’s media rights, further showcasing how vital broadcast, especially digital, partners are.
The Effectiveness Of PLEs On Streaming
Since moving away from the PPV model, both UFC and WWE have leaned into digital distribution through premium live events (PLEs).
The WWE entered an agreement with NBCU to feature its slate of premium events on Peacock, which marked a turning point in its media strategy. The WWE has hosted numerous events on the service, but NBCU has not always been transparent about viewership data. For example, Peacock announced that WrestleMania 40, a two-night event heavily featuring The Rock, was “Peacock’s most-streamed entertainment event ever, generating 1.3 billion live minutes across both nights.” It’s estimated that between 2.7 and 2.9 million Peacock accounts streamed the event. However, Peacock’s lack of transparency continued with the following year’s WrestleMania, when the company only reported that “it more than doubled the 1.3 billion live minutes reported in 2024.” This inconsistency in self-reported PLE viewership raises questions about the reliability of their audience metrics.
Despite the lack of consistent viewership metrics, the WWE is happy with the PLE model. It also seems that ESPN sees its product and the PLE model as pretty valuable, as they’ve bought out a lot of the NBCU media deal (only leaving Saturday Night’s Main Event on Peacock). Their new media contract with ESPN will earn $325 million a year for five years.
The UFC doesn’t call their events PLEs, but they’re very similar. The UFC began to flex many of its PPV events on the ESPN+ streaming service, with some only available through the PPV model, while others have been flexed across Disney’s assets, including ABC, Disney+, and ESPN. By making some of their events available on broadcast and streaming, they’ve elevated their exposure in the digital space.
With fans having more free time and live sports largely paused during COVID, the UFC saw success in the digital sphere: the Sports Business Journal reported that UFC on ESPN viewership rose 16% from the previous year, averaging 773,000 viewers and accounting for four of the top five most-streamed events on ESPN+ that year. Although a large number of events have not had their viewership reported, it’s clear that the UFC has a significant digital audience.
PPVs Last Round?
Pay-per-views are not completely dissolved as WWE-competitor All Elite Wrestling (AEW) has partnered with HBO Max to offer pay-per-view events on the platform, with the first event ‘AEW All Out’ occurring on September 20th. AEW actually reached an agreement with Prime Video to offer PPV events back in March, with ‘AEW Revolution’ available days later. AEW has continued to use the PPV model for their events but have kept connections to both linear and digital television, available on Warner Bros Discovery’s TBS, TNT, and HBO Max.
But there’s still no publicly available data on the PPV purchase numbers, just a few estimates. The outlet Fightful cited the Wrestling Observer estimated 175,000 PPV purchases in total for the Texas event ‘AEW All In.’
In the end, pay-per-view has served as the bridge between television and digital. While its role hasn’t completely dissolved, it set the foundation for what we now know as premium live events and subscription-based streaming. The lesson is clear: sports and entertainment evolve with how audiences consume them, what used to be a one-night cash grab has been merged into long-term deals and streaming rights.
TSW Take
PPV didn’t vanish, it morphed. What used to be a one-night cash grab is now baked into long-term rights deals and streaming exclusives. The spectacle is still there, the money’s still there—only the delivery changed. Whether fans win or lose in this shift is still up for debate, but the playbook has been rewritten in real time.
Josh Matthews founded StreamScoop as part of an independent study in graduate school. What started as a passion project became an important pillar for showcasing his entertainment research. StreamScoop was established to provide consumers with concise and easy-to-understand streaming reporting, including a weekly streaming guide, sports streaming guide, a collection of viewership metrics from the past week, and some fun bi-weekly data analyses.
