Welcome to a special edition of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at what was dubbed as the “Fight of the Century” at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada as Floyd Mayweather took on Manny Pacquiao.
Mayweather takes care of Pac Man
It was the likeliest of outcomes despite the wagering line drawing down as many bet with their hearts and not with their heads. Mayweather muted Pacquiao’s flurries with well-calculated right hands to counter his attacks. It was a comfortable decision for Mayweather amid many voicing their displeasure for a variety of reasons. Of course, we could have done without the Pacquiao excuse of injury despite the fact it may have been the truth.
The unholy alliance of Showtime/HBO and Mayweather/Arum will likely never come to pass again. Yet, the mission was accomplished. Without an official tally, one need only eyeball the dollar amounts with egregious amounts of zeros to know that the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao was the highest grossing boxing event in its history.
Attendance and Gate
The goal was $74 million and with the astronomical prices for seats and the decree that there would be no comps, it likely made it. Even Pacquiao paid $3-$4 million for tickets for his hefty entourage to attend.
Purses
With the 60-40 split of the fight purse, Floyd Mayweather should take in $180 million. Pacquiao will pocket $120 million. As we reported, the amount of gross revenue favored the winner between $160-$180 million with 51-49 split.
Promotion of the Fight
The unique co-promotion between rivals was to the benefit of fight fans from one perspective. It saw a week with past fights from Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao on cable television. CBS Sports Network replayed most of Mayweather’s fights under his current Showtime contract and it aired the one Pacquiao fight he did with Showtime – a battle with Shane Mosley.
With the co-promotion, both networks worked with distributors in pro-actively targeting satellite and cable customers that had order past PPVs to pre-order this event. Essentially, making sure that their customers ordered Mayweather-Pacquiao. The question is how many people actually pay for the PPVs a day or two ahead of the event? Yet, it appears that the strategy worked.
Although there was no full blown HBO 24/7 or Showtime All Access 360, both networks aired shows to promote the fight.
The Pac-May press conference did better ratings-wise than the second episode of TUF last Wednesday.
Of course, there were tons of media, both sports and mainstream, too numerous to mention.
Sponsors
Pacquiao’s camp reported that he would receive over $2 million in sponsorship money from ad space on his trunks. The sponsors included Wonderful Pistachio, Smart Communications, Nike and Butterfinger. Butterfinger leveraged its sponsorship with a social media campaign which included tweets specifically from Pacquiao. He also had a deal with Samsung which was a reason why Freddie Roach took a selfie with Manny during the walk-out.
14 years in the gym for 1 night in the ring. #MayPac pic.twitter.com/VWWxeEkyN9
— Manny Pacquiao (@MannyPacquiao) May 3, 2015
Mayweather, who usually has little if any sponsors aside from his TMT clothing brand, had luxury watch-maker Hublot and Fan Duel on his trunks. He also wore Reeboks. Also of note was the Burger King walking out with Mayweather.
Freddie Roach forged a sponsorship with Geico. In addition, Buboy Fernandez, Pacquiao’s second, wore a ton of sponsors on his shirt including the use of long sleeves to include the SoCal Mitsubishi sponsors.
Odds and ends
The dual use of ring announcers and the mixed broadcast team was unique and awkward at the same time.
The replay will be aired at the same time on Showtime and HBO on Saturday night May 9th. It will be interesting to see the ratings for each network.
What are we to make of the Michelle Beadle and Rachel Nichols credential-gate? The fact that Beadle continues her own story by doubling down with stating she no longer supports WWE because Triple H is a fan of Mayweather one must wonder how much Beadle was a fan of WWE. Why was she unaware that Triple H once walked down to the ring with Mayweather and that he was involved in Wrestlemania?
Jimmy Kimmel dressed as Justin Bieber > Burger King dressed as Burger King.
My fight outfit #PacquiaoMayweather pic.twitter.com/s1gwoKAlc4
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) May 3, 2015
For the first time, fans were charged $10 to attend the weigh-ins and even those were being sold for more on the secondary market.
HBO Sports confirmed that the fight was delayed “about 45 minutes” to help fix PPV issues.
Seems like the first weekend in May (with boxing, Kentucky Derby and NBA and NHL Playoffs) is bound to be the best Saturday of the year in sports.
For those wondering, the PPV buy record is 2.48 million (Oscar de la Hoya-Mayweather) and PPV revenue record is $150 million (Canelo-Mayweather). These numbers will fall with ease.
Conclusion
For all of the hype and promotion, this was one event that was too big to fail. Even though PPV distributors experienced some technical difficulties last night, the overarching issue was that people were trying to get in and order the $100(HD) PPV. We should see this fight eclipse PPV records.
But do you think it goes over 4 million PPV buys as Kevin Iole predicts?
I am hearing the PPV for #MayPac is tracking for an enormous number. If trends continue, I expect it over 4 million
— Kevin Iole (@KevinI) May 1, 2015
Despite the last minute decrease in prices and hotel rooms in Vegas, this event drew immense attention and the casual viewer was willing to pay the steep price to see it even though they were not keen on heading to Vegas. I would tend to think this event drew near 4 million PPV buys but would not be surprised if the reports of surpassing 4 million were true.
Money money money……with shoulder injury. Pacman..theres will be a rematch ….theyre laughing straight to bank with this hahaha ha hahaha
It will do 4 million but again casual fans paid for boxing and all where reminded why they don’t follow boxing closer. I have never seen a sport that has the buyers remorse of boxing. Every boxing event I have paid for it seems 90% felt they were screwed. Yet again boxing hurt itself very badly as the fighters sucked every penny for themselves.
It is also very telling how the arena was empty up until the main event. It amazes me how few people, even among boxing fans, actually care about the sport of boxing. It’s more of a status symbol to them. They follow the hype and the personality of a few people. But very few are interested in just seeing a match. Where as a MMA event there is a full arena from the start. Happy to see the fight and be entertained by the fight without even knowing who the guys are. Interesting contrast between the two.
I bought the event and was not pleased. FMJ had all the advantages and could have easily did as well offensively as he did defensively. He choose to play it safe and not take a risk. If you are fast enough and skilled enough to make someone miss then you can also make them pay. FMJ made no effort at all to actually fight.
@ Brain “t is also very telling how the arena was empty up until the main event. It amazes me how few people, even among boxing fans, actually care about the sport of boxing. It’s more of a status symbol to them. ”
SO true!
Boxing’s #1 problem is that it is almost entirely star driven.
BS – I agree 100%. I had not bough a Mayweather PPV since his fiasco with Ortiz, and now I can go back to not buying his PPVs again. I appreciate his skill, but not his style.
There were no, I mean absolutely no regular boxing fans inside MGM arena night of the fight. All the people that were there spent a fortune on tickets and were casual millionaire fans. Besides why would anyone go in early and miss all the special Vegas dinners and pre parties?? You guys are idiots!!! You guys act like you could actually just walk up and buy tickets. You can’t compare this fight to any other boxing fights.
This fight is different on every level! Even smaller fights have few people inside early, boxing fans don’t consider hot dogs and popcorn a dinner, they go to a nice restaurant before the fight!! Especially in Vegas!!
The problem is Sal is trying to compare this to other boxing events. The financial success of this event is not reflective of the sport of boxing. This will never happen again in boxing, nothing even remotely close to this. Also the sport will probably never even have another super fight. All its stars are dying out and there is a better product on the market in mma. The youth are drawn far more to mma as we see in the ratings consistently. Boxing is a sport that is fading and has already lost its market share to MMA.
Using Kevin Iole as a source of information for anything is very foolish. He is wrong everytime he opens his mouth because he gets his information and statistics from promoters who exaggerate.
D is repeating the same loser dribble thats been said about boxing since Marciano retired hahahaha Try to be original.
UFC fans tend to go inot fights early because they get tired of sitting in their cars and you are not allowed to loiter at the vegas bus terminal hahahahaha
Pretty funny how dedicated Sal is to trolling on here. He has to defend the honor of his lover, Bob Arum.
What is Sal going to do when Mayweather and Pacquiao retire? Mayweather will be done in September and Pac probably shortly thereafter.
The Vegas bus terminal is where Heavyweight boxing has been hosting events for the past decade. HAHAHA!
The Vegas MacDonald s hires extra security for UFC events. Line out the door hahhaha
Dozens of great boxing fights and fighters on the horizon. What does the UFC have??? Rousey, CM punk hahaha The uFC had better stars years ago and before the fox deal. Oh well you can get free Doritos in Mexico City at a UFC show hahahah
Once again Boxing haters wishing for Boxing’s demise. Plenty of haters that died of old age waiting for that to happen. Plenty more will never see the day!
over 4 million ppv buys and still counting hahahah
Look how D, who hates boxing, trolls all the boxing threads on here hahahahha
Holy Shit, I went to Burger King today. First time in more than a year probably, can’t remember the last time I went. Reading this article makes me wonder why I went. I know advertising works and that was pretty good to have the “burger King” walk out with him so I guess I got influenced.
I think I might watch Jimmy Kimmel tonight, but I’m not sure why.
Boxing crowd, P 55 crowd. Boxing stars 36 and over. According to Nielsen’s ratings, the 18-49 demo is locked into mma, not boxing and is only going to create more of a separation over time. Boxing just lost a shitload of casuals for the future from this fight. What these idiots like Saldaqueef don’t realize is that this fight was the worst thing possible for boxing.
Also, Sal, this is called mmapayout, not boxingpayout which is where you belong so you can spread your delusions that are orchestrated from a delirious and compulsively lying old fag boxing promoter. RIP boxing Fall of 2015. HAHAHA!!
I am beginning to worry that the massiveness of this event will not be good for boxing in the long run. I have never experienced so many casual fans and people who have never seen a boxing match ordering this event. This is the worst fight to introduce them to boxing or to keep them watching, this fight is the perfect example of all the ‘fails’ that plague combat sports in general (over-hyped matches that don’t live up to expectations, boring decisions and the feeling that they just took your money away).
I think a distinction has to be made between the people attending the event and the people watching at home… for the people attending this particular event, it’s not about boxing or the quality of the fight, it’s all about the A-list feeling that the uniqueness of this event generated. But for the people watching at home, forking $100 dollars, how many will end up feeling like they just got robbed? And the people that were introduced or re-introduced to boxing, will they watch again?
well from the looks of things lately mma isn’t paying out very much bahahahah
D googles a lot of boxing info haha , maybe D should just watch some fights instead!!
Call me when the UFC even touches 2m.
Boxing wins, boxing wins, boxing wins, boxing wins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCVhyrgWSBY
Boxing has a home run every so often, the UFC tries to make a strike out a home run, haha very different
My Brains been smashed- the reason why no one was at the undercard was because NO ONE GOOD WAS ON THE UNDERCARD (facepalm). I can assure you If lamont Peterson or Adrian broner were on the undercard it would have been nearly full. Also tickets were 2-20k each how the fuck can fans get in? if tickets were 400.00 that placed would have been sold out. I love people that go no one cares about Boxing anymore. It reminds me of a Yogi Berra saying ” No one goes to that nightclub anymore because its always filled.” After a 4 million ppv buy and 90 million worldwide watching this fight I swear no one will watch boxing again. lol. EVERYONE saw this fight. even rock stars saw the shit and were commenting on twitter. Pac vs mayweather 2 at 80.00 a pop does 2.5 million ppv’s
OK here it is, another thing you cannot google.Why do casino’s pay millions for a big fight??? DUGH so people come and gamble.Once the fight is sold they dont care if anyone goes to the fight, in fact they want everyone to spend all their time losing money in their casinos and not sitting in an arena not gambling!!!!! The under card for big fights are always shit so no one goes in till late. When you have multi millionaires flying in from all over the world you want them to spend as little as possible away from the tables. Its casino 101!! So yea they purposely try to keep the venue empty as late as possible with all kinds of distractions in the casinos. The UFC well they have a happy meal special and MacDonald s and the penny slots are packed and I hear bingo is big!! bahahahahahh
The Gayest, call me when boxing hits 8m ppvs annually. Call me when PBC actually gets a network tv deal. MMA controls the marketshare now, and boxing just lost a few million fans from the other night.
HAHAHAHA!!! Sal in boxing homo overload. His head is going to explode from all of this coverage. HAHAHAHA!!
Fagbusiness, your numbers are exaggerated Kevin Iole numbers, that fight single- handedly lost boxing millions of fans and there isn’t going to be a Mayweather-Pacquiao II. Mayweather is going to take one more fight against someone very easy and then retire, where the boxing ppv numbers will then plummet massively and morons like you and Sal will attempt to spin it like the retards that you are.
D defends a promotion that just did a 70k ppv bahahah but boxing is dead? Wow D is back on his medication that distorts reality.
Sal manufactures statistics and delusions in his brain and then claims these are actually reality. Saldaqueer desperate as usual.
Its getting really brutal in the press for the fight:
http://www.csnne.com/article/tanguay-these-guys-took-fight-out-boxing
Even though there weren’t any black eyes from the event, boxing certainly took one after that bore-athon.
“The Gayest, call me when boxing hits 8m ppvs annually.”
It is very possible that Mayweather-Pacquiao outsells every UFC ppv this year combined.
If not then Mayweather-Pacquiao and Canelo-Cotto later this year will.
How “big” is the UFC that it only takes 1-2 boxing ppvs to outsell the UFCs 13 ppvs?
“..that fight single- handedly lost boxing millions of fans and there isn’t going to be a Mayweather-Pacquiao II.”
Oh so millions of boxing fans are gonna leave the sport because of this fight?
What fucking fairytale world do you live in where you think these fans are simply going to a leave a sport they watch to go waltz over and go watch MMA?
Boxing didn’t lose any fans because of this fight, just like football doesnt lose fans because of one game. No football fan ever watched a Super Bowl and said “Fuck this, Im going to watch Rugby because this game made me so mad”
Its like your some type of moron or something.
What really happened is the same “casual” boxing fan who bought the Mayweather-De La Hoya ppv, forgot how Mayweather fought, and was reminded again with the PPV.
Boxing didnt lose anyone. These same morons will be the next giant fight in 5 years.
It is very impossible that Mayweather-Pacquiao outsells every UFC ppv this year. Only an idiot would believe that.
Canelo-Cotto hasn’t been signed yet and and will not do a fraction of what
“How “big” is the UFC that it only takes 1-2 boxing ppvs to outsell the UFCs 13 ppvs?”
First off, that hasn’t happened, but second, even if it does, you are taking an unprecedented boxing match and acting as if it is the norm. The reason why you are doing this is because you are a social derelict, who is a professional retard. You also still haven’t grasped the concept that boxing can not sell with multiple fighters and when they attempt to spread out their ppv’s, their avg per ppv went drastically down as we saw last year.
“Oh so millions of boxing fans are gonna leave the sport because of this fight?
What fucking fairytale world do you live in where you think these fans are simply going to a leave a sport they watch to go waltz over and go watch MMA?”
No, millions of casual fans are. That untapped market that Haymon’s marketing plan refers to with PBC, good luck getting them to stay after that turd floater of a fight. When was the last time a big fight in boxing was exciting? It happens all the time in mma. The finish rate is considerably higher.
“Boxing didn’t lose any fans because of this fight, just like football doesnt lose fans because of one game. No football fan ever watched a Super Bowl and said “Fuck this, Im going to watch Rugby because this game made me so mad”
Its like your some type of moron or something.”
Yes they did, you are just an idiot who can’t grasp reality. Comparing this again to football is absurd. NFL ratings absolutely destroy boxing ratings. NFL wild card football playoff games would draw better ratings than this fight had it been on tv. NFL ratings are the best of any sporting event on tv. Even when there is a bad Super Bowl, first off, it would still be more interesting than that shit fight, and second, there are so many entertaining games leading up to that, which draw massive ratings, so to use that as an analogy is idiotic.
“What really happened is the same “casual” boxing fan who bought the Mayweather-De La Hoya ppv, forgot how Mayweather fought, and was reminded again with the PPV.
Boxing didnt lose anyone. These same morons will be the next giant fight in 5 years.”
Those casual fans are the ones boxing is going after for PBC, and that fight was disastrous for tapping into that market. There won’t be another giant fight in boxing. Every reasonable person can see the writing on the wall.
*Canelo-Cotto hasn’t been signed yet and and will not do a fraction of what Mayweather-Pac did if it in fact goes down*
Hahaha D googles a lot of boxing it must really burn his ass that boxing will double again in 2015 haha
Sal continuing with his fabricating statistics and foaming at the mouth.
It’s so funny how morons claim that boxing will lose millions of fans! Truth is in north America boxing only has about 1 million fans that spend money on boxing. Counting casual fans is what the ufc does. Unfortunately there were too many casual fans at Canada the other night haha
Boxing in America wishes it had 1 million fans consistently that pay. It also wishes its fans weren’t predominantly in nursing homes. Boxing is the senior citizen crowd. HAHAHA!
We live in a new age with social media and more entertainment options. In addition to a less violent and less lead-poisoned society. It remains to be seen whether boxing will always be a big sport. Pool and bowling used to be huge too at one time.
It doesn’t take much these days for a big sport to drop considerably. We have seen examples such as ice hockey and cycling fall off considerably in just a short time. I wouldn’t be confident if I was involved in boxing or mma. The combat sports audience is very limited and seems to be only getting smaller.
Also, Haymon and PBC’s investors are going to lose their money. No doubt about it. Nice job on his part on getting so many suckers though.
If the point of this boxing match was for both guys to get rich. Then they didn’t have to even show up. Just take everyones money walk into the ring, shake hands, wave to the crowed of idiots, and walk out. Making two guys rich was not what this hype was about from you boxing fans. You all thought this was going to get huge press and draw in the largest boxing crowed ever for all to fitness a great fight and see the glory of boxing that would give it a shot in the arm across the board from ratings and PPV sales and TV deals for tons of boxers. In reality everyone tuned in for boxing to embarrass itself and remind everyone why they no longer care about boxing. Not only did the fight not live up to the hype which alone turns off many fans. But in typical scumbag boxing fashion they stole every penny from its fans in the “con of the century”!
Now every news media and sports show and fan are talking about how bad this fight was and how boxing is dead. Not what you invisioned was it? But you guys are so focused on what boxers get paid. Well 2 guys got paid and that’s seems to be much more important to you than the sport of boxing itself.
This just in: Manny Pacquiao and Bob Arum Sued for $5 Million on Behalf of Everyone Who Watched Fight
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/manny-pacquiao-promoter-sued-5-million-behalf-everyone-who-watched-n354286
Funny the same people who hyped this fight the trolls on here blushed over are the same people now bashing boxing because of the shitty product it was.
Ufc 100 was hyped like crazy and got everyones eyes and it delivered. Boxing didn’t! If the product sucks then you don’t want all those eyes of casual viewers.
Boxing is to outdated and one dimensional to appeal to the masses and should cater to those who appreciate it and stop trying to go main stream for big individual pay days. Boxing sells an idea to the masses of what boxing is and when those people get real boxing and don’t like it you tell them that is boxing and they shouldn’t complain. You sell entertainment and do a bait and switch and replace it with the “sweet science”. People do not like a typical boxing match. It is boring. People do like the typical Mma match they usually is unpredictable and fast and modern.
The fight didn’t suck because it was “real boxing”. The fight sucked because Floyd Mayweather dialed it in. Pacquiao had nothing for him. Mayweather should have knocked him out or at least done a lot of damage.
Pacquiao is his smallest opponent in years. Pacquiao looked like shit in the fight and was inactive and inaccurate. Mayweather has gone up against tougher and bigger opponents like Cotto and Maidana and won. He should have destroyed the Pacquiao that was in the ring saturday night. It looked like Mayweather just did the bare minimum to win. This is different than his usual style. It was an extra boring performance for Mayweather.
Just because the May-Pac fight was big doesn’t mean boxing can’t wash out fairly quickly. Remember Tyson’s career and popularity was done very quickly after his $20 million payday and 1.9+ million buys vs Lennox Lewis. Tyson’s next fight against Etienne only did 100,000 buys and his final fight only did 250,000 buys.
That was before social media. If you start to stink these days it can definitely affect the future of the sport very quickly.
Tyson’s fight against Danny Williams did 150,000 buys.
So Tyson’s last fights on PPV went:
450,000 Golota
40,000 Nielsen
1.9+ million Lewis
100,000 Etienne
150,000 Williams
250,000 McBride
This is the guy that everyone use to have to see whenever he fought. If Mike Tyson can lose popularity due to shitty fights, it can happen to Mayweather and Pacquiao.
Ppl still watch mma?
Yeah, Gayest, you know they do or else you wouldn’t be trolling on a mma website. The question is will people still be watching boxing when Mayweather retires in September and the answer is clearly no. HAHAHA!