Report: ‘Battle of the Giants’ gets tiny U.S. pay-per-view numbers

The PFL’s big ‘Battle of the Giants’ pay-per-view went down two weekends ago on October 19th and featured many of the biggest names on the promotion’s roster. That didn’t help them move a significant number of units in the United States, unfortunately.

According to Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer, the PFL PPV did just over 10,000 buys on ESPN+, the exclusive platform for ‘Battle of the Giants’ in the U.S.. At $49.99 a pop, that means they made just $500,000 in America off an event featuring a $10 million dollar fight between Francis Ngannou and Renan Ferreira.

It’s worth noting that the fight was also streamed on DAZN internationally for $19.99 and we don’t have those numbers, or the numbers for ancillary deals in smaller international markets. But these U.S. numbers can’t be seen as good considering the card featured Francis Ngannou and Cris Cyborg, the promotion’s two biggest names.

PFL’s Donn Davis celebrated the event after it happened, boasting of 4.4 billion ‘impressions’ and 326 million video views across 160 countries. Fans at the time joked that he was counting all the pirate streams — and you know what, that might not be too far off from the truth. This is an attention economy, and PFL did have people’s attention during their last event.

Now we have to see if they can get people’s money.

It’s a tough environment for pay-per-view these days, especially when your financial partners insist on you holding your events in a foreign market like Saudi Arabia on Saturday afternoon. There’s also Turki Alalshikh redefining what the price of an event should be. After years of watching PPV prices rise to $70, $80, or even $100, Alalshikh has said he’d bring prices down to $20.

Did you buy the ‘Battle of the Giants’ pay-per-view earlier this month? Would you buy a future PFL pay-per-view at $20? Let us know in the comments below, Maniacs!