Dana White Estimates $75 Million Purse for Conor McGregor in Floyd Mayweather Bout

If both sides can come to terms, Conor McGregor stands to make significantly more money for boxing Floyd Mayweather than for any fight in his UFC career to date.

During an appearance on “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd, UFC President Dana White offered some of his thoughts on negotiations for the proposed superfight, including a potential purse for both Mayweather and McGregor.

“I think we get the McGregor side done in the next couple of days, and then I go lock myself in a room with Team Mayweather for a couple of days and see what we can come out with,” White told Cowherd.

“[The purse] depends on how much the fight sells,” he added. “If the fight sells as well as I think it can, Floyd makes a little north of [$100 million] and Conor makes [$75 million].”

That figure would include a guaranteed purse as well as a cut of the pay-per-view revenue for both men. Mayweather is no stranger to massive paydays: The undefeated boxer is believed to have earned in the neighborhood of $700 million over the course of his career, including a whopping $250 million haul for his May 2015 bout against Manny Pacquiao. McGregor’s largest disclosed payday was $3 million for a victory over Nate Diaz at UFC 202, although that does not include pay-per-view points, sponsorships or any other discretionary bonuses.

Of course, Mayweather-McGregor remains far from a done deal, and finding a revenue split that suits “Money” and his team could prove to be a sticking point in negotiations.

“He feels like he’s the A-side and he should get more of it. We haven’t really gotten into that negotiation yet. I wanted to get McGregor locked in first, because McGregor’s under contract with me,” White said. “At the end of the day does this fight make a ton of sense for me? It really doesn’t. But Conor wants this thing really bad, and I’ve said it many times: The kid’s stepped up and saved some big fights for me. So I’m in. I’ll figure it out.”

White said that he expects to deal primarily with Al Haymon, the rarely interviewed and powerful boxing power broker who serves Mayweather’s primary advisor and is also the man behind Premier Boxing Champions. There will be some haggling about the details of the bout itself, but it’s already understood that the contest will be contested under boxing rules.

“That’s what the deal’s gonna be. Obviously in boxing you start to negotiate things like the gloves, 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. “Again, I haven’t gotten into a room with Team Mayweather yet. Who knows? “We’re good on the Conor side. I need to figure out the Mayweather side, and maybe the Mayweather side can’t be done. I promised Conor I’d do everything I could to make this thing happen, so that’s what I’m gonna do.”

Even if McGregor, who has no prior professional boxing experience but has been licensed in California, performs poorly against Mayweather, White doesn’t expect the UFC name to be tarnished. However, any previous talk of a duel boxing/MMA card seems to have fallen by the wayside.

“This thing is not gonna be UFC, it’s gonna be a boxing match,” White said. “It’s not gonna have anything to do with the UFC. The closest thing my brand will be to this is obviously I’ll be part of the promotion for the fight, and Conor’s my guy. That’s it.”

That said, White acknowledges that the UFC’s core philosophy over the years is part of what has allowed Mayweather-McGregor to become more than just a pipe dream.

“One of the things that we’ve done and the reason we’ve built this brand the way that we have, is we always bring people the fights they want to see,” he said. “There’s no doubt that people want to see this fight. It’s all anybody ever asks me about. I’m gonna do my best to see this thing get done. I’m not saying I can, but we’re trying to.”