Ticket Sales Sluggish for Pacquiao vs DLH
December 6, 2008
UFC felt the economic downturn at the box office, doing a strong but still smaller than projected gate for UFC 91. The compnay ended up comping around 3,500 tickets to the show from Vegas. Following on the heels of that news come reports that Pacquiao vs DLH received a similar lukewarm response at the box office:
Initial sales for the bout were strong at the time it was announced in late August, prompting organizers to quickly proclaim it had sold out. Many brokers jumped in with both feet, snapping up a lot of tickets because they expected the market to stay hot. But within weeks, it had cooled dramatically, right around the time the economy took a sharp turn with the bad news about Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions.
The slowed down economy, the rise of mixed martial arts as an alternative to boxing, overzealous brokers overestimating the bout’s allure or simply the decline in popularity of the “sweet science” all played a role in the tepid sales.
MMA was noted as a cause, but it too has felt the ill effects of the economy on the premium priced seats being offered. The UFC problems are somewhat mitigated by a more modest pricing structure, ($1000 high end UFC seats are actually reasonable in comparison to boxing). Tickets for UFC 92 are also extremely sluggish, but there is some glimmer of hope, with BJ vs GSP 2 doing good business two months out from their showdown.
