We are less than a week away from Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather vs. Pacquiao goes down on May 2, live on PPV, and Bloody Elbow will have your full fight coverage all week.
What is being billed as the Fight of the Century is a Superfight in every sense of the word. With years and years of build up, it’s obvious this fight is going to be big. The question is, just how big? Let’s take a look at some of the major boxing records that stand to fall Saturday night.
BOXING BUSINESS RECORD HOLDERS
PPV BUYS: 2.4 million
The current record here stands at roughly 2.4 million for Floyd Mayweather vs. Oscar De La Hoya back in 2007. Only one other fight has even come close to that mark and surpassed 2 million – Floyd Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez in 2013, which drew 2.2 million.
The assumption is that Mayweather vs. Pacquiao beats this, and it very likely will. But there is some question as to just how much it will beat it. Mayweather’s two 2014 fights with Marcos Maidana both drew roughly 900,000 buys. Since that De La Hoya fight, only one other Mayweather fight (2008 vs. Ricky Hatton) failed to surpass 1 million. On the other side, Pacquiao was drawing 1 million + in 6 out of 9 fights from 2008-2012. Since his loss to Juan Manuel Marquez, he’s drawn 470,000 (vs. Brandon Rios), 800,000 (vs. Timothy Bradley), and 400,000 (vs. Chris Algieri). That Algieri number is a major red flag, as it is Pacquiao’s lowest since 2008. So you have both fighters coming in off their lowest buys since their respective superstar making showings against Oscar De La Hoya.
Regardless, even conservative estimates have this coming in over the 3 million mark, blowing the previous record away with no trouble.
PPV REVENUE: $150 million
The current record holder here is Floyd Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez from 2013, a fight that pulled in an impressive $150 million in PPV revenue. That fight cost $65 for the PPV ($75 for HD) and with its 2.2 million buys, pulled in an average of $68 per buy.
Second place is $136 million for Mayweather vs. De La Hoya. Interestingly, because that fight was in 2007, if you were to adjust for inflation, it would become #1 at $153 million. That one sold for only $55.
As for Mayweather vs. Pacquiao? With PPV costs running at $90 and $100 for HD, and the 3 million buys estimate, this is looking to bring in somewhere in the ballpark of $285 million in PPV revenue alone, nearly doubling the current record. Even if buys come in under expectations, there is virtually no chance this does not blow the previous record away.
LIVE GATE: $20,003,150
NSAC data has the Mayweather vs. Canelo fight at #1 here again, with a gate of $20,003,150 generated by the 16,146 fans. Again, Mayweather vs. De La Hoya is #2 at $18.4 million, and again, it would be #1 with inflation at $20.7 million. For the Canelo fight, tickets ranged from $350 to $2,000, with the average ticket price landing at $1,239. Mayweather vs. Pacquiao tickets range from $1,500 to $7,500, meaning once again, that record should fall. One interesting aspect here is that a small fraction of the 16,000 seats will be filled by regular ticket buyers. Most seats have been set aside for casinos, the camps, etc. Though again, that should not stop the gate from breaking the previous record.
So, at the end of the day, it looks like next week we will have new clear records in all 3 of these categories after the conclusion of the biggest boxing fight of all time – records which are unlikely to be broken any time soon. And that folks is why they call it a Superfight.
See it live, this Saturday night on PPV, and join Bloody Elbow here for Mayweather vs. Pacquiao live coverage.
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