If a proposed boxing match between retired pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather and UFC champion Conor McGregor sells to the level that Dana White believes it can, there will be plenty of money to go around for both sides.
How much? That depends, of course, upon how much the fight sells, not to mention if and when we actually see it. But the UFC president believes we are close to finding out.
"If the fight sells as well as I think it can, Floyd makes a little north of $100 [million] and Conor makes $75 [million]," White said during Wednesday's appearance on FS1's "The Herd."
Mayweather, 40, earned a guaranteed purse of $100 million for his 2015 victory over Manny Pacquiao in their long-awaited superfight and claims to have made upwards of $300 million overall from pay-per-view sales for a fight that sold a record 4.6 million buys. McGregor, 28, set a UFC record last August with a disclosed fight purse of $3 million, which doesn't account for bonuses and other forms of revenue.
White said he has been in talks with McGregor, who is currently idle from the UFC while awaiting the birth of his first child in May, and that both promoter and fighter are in agreement from a financial standpoint.
"The Conor side, we're good on the Conor side," White said. "I need to figure out the Mayweather side, and maybe it can't be [figured out]. Maybe the Mayweather side can't be done, but we'll see. I promised Conor I'd do everything I could to make this thing happen, so that's what I'm going to do."
White has publicly changed his tune in recent months, saying he will no longer stand in the way of McGregor attempting to make this kind of payday. Previously, White had said it would be an "epic fail" for McGregor to pursue the fight.
"At the end of the day, does this fight make a ton of sense for me? It really doesn't," White said. "But Conor wants this thing really bad, and I've said it many times, the kid has stepped up and saved some big fights for me, man, so I'm in. I'll figure it out."
Now, White just needs to come to terms with Mayweather, saying he expects to "lock himself in a room" with Mayweather's longtime adviser Al Haymon, knowing full well that the unbeaten boxer expects to be paid as the A-side of the fight.
"Listen, one of the things that we have done and the reason we have built this brand the way that we have is we always bring people the fights they want to see," White said. "There's no doubt that people want to see this fight. It's all anybody ever asks me about. I'm going to do my best to see if I can get this thing done. I'm not saying I can but we're trying to."
Asked about the rules of the fight and whether he plans on negotiating anything into the deal from a rules standpoint to help McGregor, who has never boxed professionally, White reiterated that it would be a boxing match only.
"Obviously, in boxing, you start to negotiate things like the gloves and the officials and the judges and how big the ring is--— a lot of different things you can negotiate as far as the fight goes," White said. "But again, I haven't gotten into a room with Team Mayweather yet, and who knows?
"This thing is not going to be UFC; it's going to be a boxing match. It's not going to have anything to do with UFC. The closest thing my brand will be to this obviously is I'll be a part of the promotion for this fight and Conor is my guy. That's it."
