ESPN reports that HBO has secured the rights to the Floyd Mayweather-Miguel Cotto fight on May 5th. Despite a challenge from rival Showtime, HBO PPV will have the fight.
The rights acquisition was the first major move by former Showtime sports head Ken Hersman after Ross Greenburg left the post amidst the premium channel’s first loss of a Manny Pacquiao fight to Showtime. The fight will likely include its standard 24/7 lead-up to the big fight as well as additional marketing and cross-promotional opportunities with Time Warner’s other properties.
Payout Perspective:
It appears that HBO has stepped up its game since losing the Pacquiao-Mosley fight. Despite whether or not you like Floyd Mayweather, he is a boxing draw and made for promotional shows like HBO’s well-done “24/7” series. Showtime had an exceptional show last night but it was overshadowed by the Haye-Chisora brawl (more on this later). Unfortunately for Showtime, its first big fight in 2012, Victor Ortiz-Andre Berto, was put off due to an injury to Berto. As for Mayweather-Cotto, you can expect some definite hype based upon the success of Cotto since his loss to Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather being Floyd Mayweather. Certainly, 24/7 will be much more attractive considering Mayweather going to jail, Manny Pacquiao and his recent comments about Jeremy Lin.
I’ve been suckered into buying the past few Mayweather fights and after his fiasco with Ortiz I swore I wouldn’t buy anymore. I’m sticking to my guns for this one. I’m sure the 24/7 series will be interesting in a Jersey Shore kind of way, but I’m just going to have to pass.
I’ll spend those $60 buying my wife the flowers I didn’t buy for Valentine’s.
This fight will probably break 1.4 million U.S. only ppv buys. Without a doubt.
It could do that much. If you believe that Mayweather-Ortiz did 1.25M and Cotto-Margarito did 600k then this could top 1.4. I don’t know that it’s “without a doubt”. Any estimates above 1.2M come with big doubts. Remember that Golden Boy was expecting 1.5M for Mayweather-Ortiz.