Payout Perspective: Pacquiao-Marquez III

Welcome to a special edition of Payout Perspective in which we cover Saturday night’s fight between Juan Manuel Marquez versus Manny Pacquiao held in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand.

Pacquiao wins decision over Marquez

Unlike his past several fights, Pacquiao was not Superman as we can safely say that Marquez is Pacquiao’s kryptonite. Despite the loss, Marquez is the only boxer that can arguably claim he can hang with Pacquiao in three fights. While the judges’ decisions may have betrayed him, Marquez made a good showing. We now see that for all of Pacquiao’s popularity and wins, the strategy of fighting in upper weight divisions while maintaining his speed worked. But when facing a good counterpuncher, it presents problems.

The silver lining in this is that Floyd Mayweather, likely an attention grab during the trilogy’s pre-fight hype, announced he wanted Pacquiao on May 5th. What he saw Saturday probably affirmed his decision to fight Pacquiao next year.

As of today, it seems that the posturing for the fight has begun. The LA Times reports that Bob Arum has stated that Pacquiao would rather have a 4th Marquez fight before fighting Mayweather. Frankly, I think every business owner on the Las Vegas strip turned its stomach with this news as its likely that a Mayweather-Pacquiao matchup would be a boon for businesses across the Las Vegas strip. It would also mean a $100 million payday for the fighters.

Payouts

Speaking of payouts, USA Today reports Pacquiao earned $22 million Saturday night plus a share of the PPV revenue which is estimated at $30 million. Marquez receives $5 million plus another $5 from the PPV revenue.

Attendance – UPDATED 11/15

UPDATE: Pacquiao vs Marquez: Attendance: 16,389; Tickets Sold: 15,498; Comps: 891; Live Gate: $11.648 Million. It’s 9th all time in Nevada

Attendance was16,368 according to a tweet of Dan Rafael of ESPN. As indicated in the NY Times, the Pacquiao fight was a sellout within two weeks although ticket prices averaged $1,000.

Promotion of the Fight

For the second time, Time Warner utilized its networks to promote its HBO PPVs. This time around Piers Morgan of CNN interviewed Manny Pacquiao. The network also ran HBO’s 24/7 series which aired its usual 4 week series up until fight night.

The Audience Network ran Pacquiao-Marquez I and II which were the best vehicles to promote this trilogy in my opinion.

Manny made his usual appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. This time he sang a duet with Kimmel. He also did his share of interviews for the fight including one on the Jim Rome Show. Although he’s a very nice guy, Pacquiao’s interviews are lost in translation as one can tell that he’s trying to be honest while trying to follow some media training. He comes off as a genuinely nice guy but he doesn’t really answer any questions.

The promotion of the fight included the traditional press tour. It also included this gem with Pacquiao interviewing Marquez.

Via Top Rank (H/t Bad Left Hook)

Sponsors

MGM Grand, AT&T, Smart and Tecate were primary sponsors.

As most big fights, Tecate offered its $25 rebate when purchasing Tecate beer. The rebate is offered only in certain areas.

Telecommunications companies must have seen this fight with the belief that many people from the Philippines and Mexico use its services to communicate with people in the United States and vice versa. Juan Manuel Marquez wore a Cablecom hat to the ring and Smart, a leading Philippines wireless services provider, was a primary sponsor.

Pacquiao’s fight night sponsors included Motolite, LBC, Cafe Puro, Uno, Ricoa, Phoenix Petroleums and a Nike-sponsored ring robe.

Its obvious that both fighters’ in-ring endorsements are based on the draw they receive from their countries. This rings true especially with Pacquiao as we see a lot of mainstream Filipino sponsors. Most of these sponsors (Motolite, Cafe Puro, Ricoa) have been with Pacquiao for a while.

Odds and ends

-What was Jalen Rose doing as an emcee to the weigh-ins?

-One of the better Face-Offs with Max Kellerman was played post-fight to hype the Cotto-Margarito fight. It was heated discussion and much animosity between the two. What HBO intended for these things. An interesting plug for the iPad during the Faceoff as well as Cotto used the iPad to show that Margarito may have had loaded wraps during their last fight. Really a great promo vehicle for the iPad as the photo was clear and Cotto easily used the feature to magnify the picture. Its indirect marketing at its best.