John Ourand of Sports Business Daily is reporting that Manny Pacquiao vs. Joshua Clottey did 700,000 buys on HBO PPV on March 13th at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
HBO logged 700,000 PPV buys and $35.3M in revenue for Manny Pacquiao’s unanimous decision victory over Joshua Clottey on March 13 at Cowboys Stadium. HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg said that he expected 500,000-600,000 buys. “We didn’t think Manny could carry the load to this degree. He’s attracting more than just the hard core boxing fan.
Payout Perspective:
The figure tells us a lot about the ability of Pacquiao to draw a crowd, which should reaffirm his bargaining position when looking at a future date with Floyd Mayweather (should Mayweather beat Mosley in May).
Seven hundred thousand is the sort of range that most people thought this fight would fall within, so I’m not sure I believe Greenburg when he says this fight exceeded his expectations. It’s likely more the case that he’s doing his job as one of the promoters of the fight to help build the Pacquiao hype; anyone that’s been paying attention over the last few months knows that Manny can draw from outside the traditional hardcore fan base.
However, I do think that, unless Pacquiao’s next fight is against Mayweather, this fight against Clottey will hurt him the next time he goes to PPV. He did draw a lot of casual fans – people wanted to see what all the fuss was about – but many were left disappointed.
Manny did what he could to make the fight interesting but even he couldn’t save it from being dull and a let down.
700K is pretty good. I agree, where most would expect. But I think he can draw that against anyone anytime.
“He did draw a lot of casual fans – people wanted to see what all the fuss was about – but many were left disappointed.”
This type of reasoning (which ultimately proved false) MIGHT have been applicable to some of the less-than-stellar UFC shows over the past 24 months, but not to this boxing card.
Peter,
I was disappointed with the fight, but know better than to write Pacquiao off. But let’s face it: we live in a world of consumerism that’s highly geared towards instant gratification. Many casual fans watching Pacquiao – or even boxing – for the first time in a long time didn’t like what they saw that night.
How many of those do you expect to come back unless Pacquiao is fighting Mayweather?
I’ve stated as much about UFC cards in the past; and if you look at the numbers over the last six months, you could make a very strong case that reasoning has been justified.
Pacquiao has extremely loyal Phillipines supporting him, which I believe is the reason he has good/great PPV numbers. “… in 2007, the U.S. State Department estimated the size of the Filipino American community at 4 million[2] or 1.5% of the United States population. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_Americans#Population). I think people keep givign Mayweather too much credit for his PPV numbers. I think De La Hoya had more to do with their great PPV numbers and I also believe Ricky Hatton also had a lot to do with their great PPV numbers. I don’t believe Mayweather and Mosely will get the PPV numbers people are quoting, such as 1MM plus. Neither of them have the kind of cultural following that Pacquiao, De La Hoya, and Hatton have/had.
I used to order all the boxing PPVs, but all I used to watch was the main event; all of the under card fights I would either just be talking with friends or playing poker. When it comes to UFC PPVs I’m engaged from beginning to end, which is why I will never buy another boxing PPV event ever again. I saw the Pacquiao fight the following Saturday on HBO for free and he was awesome as always and Clottey just proved he’s just not in Pacquiao’s league just like most fighters he has fought.
Bottom line, unless you’re loaded there’s only so many PPVs one is going to buy per month, and I will always choose a UFC PPV over a boxing PPV especially if I know I can see the boxing main event a week later.
Mayweather/Mosley doesn’t do less then 1.5 million buys, take that to the bank.