The Sports Business Journal (subscription only) reports on the record breaking night for boxing this Saturday night. Aside from Floyd Mayweather’s astronomical guaranteed purse and gate, the article details the money invested and anticipated from the event.
CBS, Showtime and other television distributors will spend between $80 to $100 million in promotional value for the fight which exceeds previous spending on Golden Boy fights by 40 percent. This likely includes the multi-city press tour for Mayweather-Canelo. It also intended to hold a mini-press tour for the undercard fight between Danny Garcia and Lucas Matthysse.
Sponsorship revenue totals more than $2 million and “will shift $15 million to $20 million of their media spending to promote the PPV.”
Corona, Valvoline and AT&T are three of the seven major sponsors involved in promoting the fight. Corona will have its largest retail activation in sports with displays in 15,000 retail outlets across 32 states. Corona is devoting $6 million worth of on-air media during sports programming on multiple networks. Corona and AT&T have shot its own commercial spots promoting the fight.
Valvoline will offer $35 rebates to fans that purchase the PPV and 5 quarts of its motor oil. O’Reilly Auto Parts is the presenting sponsor for the showing of the fight in theaters and will conduct its own sweepstakes promotion. As a side note, has anyone noticed that O’Reilly is now sponsoring WWE programming. At what point does it venture into the UFC?
CBS Sports Network will also be utilized during fight week airing the press conference, weigh-ins and post-fight show.
In addition, CBS will devote $15-$20 million of spots during sporting events and in its prime time. It will also air spots during the much anticipated college football game between Alabama and Texas A&M this Saturday in hopes of grabbing last minute buys.
Payout Perspective:
Its interesting that with all of the promotion, CBS didn’t decide to air the Mayweather-Canelo All Access series on the network. Instead, the series has been available online. With all of the investment into the promotion of this fight, it may break the all-time mark for PPV revenue. However, there is some question that it surpasses the mark for PPV buys. With a steep price tag of $75 HD and other ways to watch (closed circuit, theatres and bars), it may not reach the 2.4 million PPV buys set by Mayweather-De La Hoya.
Mayweather will be paid $41.5 million
Alvarez is guaranteed $6 million
http://www.latimes.com/sports/boxing/la-sp-dwyre-mayweather-alvarez-20130910,0,7055062.column#axzz2eRuG4QBg
“I have 2.6 million [PPV buys] in my mind. Records are meant to be broken,” says a hopeful Schaefer
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2013/09/04/floyd-mayweather-to-get-record-41-5-million-guarantee-for-canelo-alvarez-fight/
Showtime and others outside the network insist the Guerrero fight will narrowly beat the one million mark once everything is counted, while other boxing insiders told Forbes that the fight is likely to top out at 875,000 buys. Either figure has to be a disappointment. Showtime boss Stephen Espinoza told Forbes before the Guerrero fight that it was trending better than Mayweather’s Victor Ortiz fight in 2011 (1.25 million buys) and had an outside shot at the Miguel Cotto bout in 2012 (1.5 million).
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2013/05/30/canelo-alvarez-could-be-floyd-mayweathers-biggest-payday-ever/
Will this reach 2.4 milliion or even come close? Wasn’t Mayweather’s last fight estimated between 870,000 to 1 M.
This is only Mayweather’s 5th fight in over a 3 year span.
This fight should reach 1.5 million buys as a minimum or it would be considered a failure.
I can’t see this doing 2.4 million buys, maybe if it had HBO instead of Showtime promoting it then maybe but even then it’s a push.
I agree with duck. The lack of HBO promotion will hurt this PPV a bit. I don’t think it goes over 2m.
When they tally up the final numbers they’ll probably be around 1.9 – 2 mill. I don’t think it is going to break the record but i am hoping it does. And i agree, if this doesn’t do at least 1.5 then it is not going to meet expectations, Mayweather vs Cotto did 1.5 and it had nowhere near the hype “The One” Does.
It’s an exciting proposition. I hope it breaks the record just for the hell of it. Anything over 2 million PPV buys is incredible, although when you’re dumping this much cash into promotion I guess you have to hope for a record number.
How much do you think Garcia-Matthysee adds to the value (add’l buys) of the fight?
The stakes are high on this one. Records spending, record purse–they better have a record PPV buy to go with it. Or else things will have to change.
Garcia-Matthysse doesnt add much. Only thr hardcore fans follow thrm and they are already buying the PPV.
Are those guys in the same weight class as the main event fighters? Its unusual for boxing to add a second big fight like this. But it would be smart(and should have been don’t long ago) for them to put their future possible opponent on the card with this many viewers. IF FMJ was going to fight one of them. It would be best if all 2 million buyers knew him ahead of time to make sure he got the same buys for that fight. Most of these fans are mainstream fans. They don’t know these guys if they are not on a card like this. That’s why they have to spend so much to promote this fight. These people are not following boxing and it costs a lot to reach these casual fans. If FMJ fights the winner it will do much better than if he was fighting yet another guy the public never seen.