Welcome to a special edition of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at Pacquiao-Bradley II taking place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Pacquiao ousts Bradley
It was even until the middle rounds when Timothy Bradley began to fade and Manny Pacquiao poured it on. Bradley showboated a little and tried to feign he was not hurt by Pacquiao’s punches. Either he was going to be a genius or he was trying to lose. Even when Bradley invited Pacquiao into skirmishes and attempted to emulate the same strategy as Juan Manuel Marquez with his KO in December 2012, Pacquiao seemed to win them and/or evade the big shot.
Pacquiao now faces the winner of Juan Manuel Marquez-Mike Alvarado on May 17th. Most fans would probably like to see Pacquiao-JMM 5 because of the built-in storylines. Their last battle drew 1.15 million PPV buys and would likely equal or eclipse that number.
Even though Pacquiao should face the JMM-Alvarado winner, the LA Times is reporting that the Pacquiao camp is lobbying for a shot at Mayweather. Will this happen? Don’t hold your breath. However, the bargaining leverage is all with Mayweather. Its Pacquiao with the reported money problems and he has been the one to concede the stricter drug testing and is willing to listen to a less than 50% split of a fight. So, does that put pressure on Mayweather, or is this paragraph wasted time? We have two different promotions and if you are Mayweather, only public perception would lead you to a fight with Pacquiao. Does Mayweather really care about the public?
Attendance
Top Rank reported a sell out for the MGM Grand Garden Arena with 15,601 in attendance. The weigh-ins a day earlier were at capacity as well with approximately 4,500 witnessing Pacquiao and Bradley weigh in and flex for those in attendance.
On Tuesday, the Nevada State Athletic Commission announced 14,099 tickets were sold for a total gate of $7.9 million. H/t: Steve Kim
According to NSAC the #PacBradley fight sold 14,099 and a gate of $7.8 million. Significant tallies, but lower than previous shows #boxing
— Steve Kim (@stevemaxboxing) April 15, 2014
The gate was approximately $7,865,100 which is the lowest in years for Pacquiao. The gate falls 24th on the list of top boxing gates for Nevada. Pacquiao-Hatton in 2009 received an $8.8 million gate (15,368 in attendance) comes right before Pacquiao-Bradley II.
Payouts
It was reported that Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley would earn $6 million each. However, Bob Arum indicated that Pacquiao would make no less than $20 million. Both would receive PPV upside as well.
The undercard payouts are as follows via Bad Left Hook:
Ray Beltran ($85,000) vs Arash Usmanee ($80,000)
Khabib Allakhverdiev ($250,000) vs Jessie Vargas ($90,000)
and Bryan Vasquez ($55,000) vs Jose Felix Jr ($40,000)
Promotion of the Fight
As is custom with a big fight, Pacquiao made an appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. Bradley made an appearance on the NBA on TNT in which he was interviewed during a Laker game.
Top Rank Boxing also utilized its web site to hype the fight as well as livestream the weigh-ins.
The customary repeats of Bradley and Pacquiao’s greatest fights including their first encounter were shown on HBO and on the Audience network.
It’s notable that less showings of HBO’s 24/7 series occurred over the multiple networks owned by Time Warner. You may recall in past fights that the series could be seen on TNT, TBS and even CNN. This time around, there was little cross-pollination.
HBO added a special on-location, live pre-fight show the Thursday before the fight in addition to its usual 24/7 shows.
One thing that drew the ire of Bob Arum was the fact that the MGM Grand had signs for Floyd Mayweather’s May 3rd fight. The signs were more prominent than those of Pacquiao-Bradley II which was pointed out by Arum whenever he could. Indirectly, this likely upset sponsor Tecate, since Mayweather fights are sponsored by Corona. There’s obvious brand confusion ther. Mayweather has fought at the MGM 9 straight times and it appeared that the loyalty took precedence over the Pacquiao-Bradley rematch. It may also be due to the fact that Mayweather’s promotion has a contractual agreement to hype the fight at the MGM a certain time before the fight which may be the reason.
Sponsorships
The sponsors for this event include Tecate, Smart Communications, the leading wireless services provider for the Philippines
Tecate had its usual PPV rebate offer for those purchasing its beer at selected retailers.
The newest and most visible sponsor was Sony with its PlayStation 4 platform receiving high visibility during the fight including trailers of the PS4 gaming experience. An example of this activation had PS4 running trailers in between fighter weigh-ins during the live stream on Top Rank’s web site.
Bradley wore a variety of hats to promote certain sponsors. During his NBA on TNT interview, he wore a SaxonyInvest.com hat. During the 24/7 series, he wore a Pocial hat which is a social networking web site that connects people through polls. I am not sure if this is a great way to brand yourself but certainly Bradley is getting paid for these advertisements.
Bradley is still sponsored by Nike and had custom “Desert Storm” gear for the fight. He also was sponsored by Lexani – a high end car wheel manufacturer. The shirt was on display at the weigh-ins.
Juan Diaz sported a Body Armor hat in the corner of Bradley during the fight.
Pacquiao’s cornermen must have received Mitshubishis as the Cerritos, California and South Coast Dealerships were plainly visible as patches on Buboy and others in Pacquiao’s corner.
Odds and Ends
An interesting takeaway from the 24/7 series is that Timothy’s wife, Monica Bradley, has taken over as his manager. According to the show, she brokered Bradley’s new deal with Top Rank including the financial terms for this fight. Bradley earned $6 million for his second fight with Pacquiao which is $1 million more than he earned in the first fight. It’s a big question as to whether or not it’s a good idea to have your spouse represent you. Negotiations can get heated and while it’s easier to grasp what your client wants, there may be an issue as to if you can separate yourself from the personal relationship.
Some may have noticed that Freddie Roach wore an Under Armour shirt at weigh-ins. It seemed a bit odd considering that Pacquiao is sponsored by Nike and has worn Pacquiao Nike gear in the past.
The LA Times had an interesting article on the enforcement of PPV fees on bars that intend to show fights. The charge is dependent on the size of the bar and the more seats in a bar, the more the bar has to pay. As an example, a 50 seat bar is charged $1,600 for showing the PPV, a 51-100 seat bar is charged $2,200. For those bars that may attempt to evade the fees, promoters employ enforcement that sues bars showing the PPV without paying. Zuffa employs similar enforcement to protect itself from piracy.
With this fight, it’s likely that Pacquiao solidifies his spot as PPV royalty as he moves closer to the second spot of all-time top PPV performers. Oscar de la Hoya currently owns second while Floyd Mayweather tops the list.
And yes, there was Pacquiao’s mother.
Conclusion
This fight had more storylines yet seemed to lack the hype or buzz of previous Pacquiao fights. Nevertheless, this is one of those fights that people will find and would be willing to pay the $70 to watch. Industry experts estimated the buy rate at 700,000 while Arum suggests a more optimistic buy rate of somewhere over 1 million. Their last fight was 890,000. Notwithstanding Pacquiao-Rios this past November, Manny is still a valued commodity in the boxing PPV landscape while Bradley is still an entertaining fighter on the rise. We may just throw out that fight in Macau as an anomaly. Perhaps I may be just bullish on Pacquiao and refuse to see the writing on the wall, but I believe that this fight will do better than their first fight and hit 1 million PPV buys.
“does that put pressure on Mayweather, or is this paragraph wasted time?”
Ha. My money’s on wasted time.
Good main event. Manny looked sharp, and made it seem like Bradley, who is a very good fighter, look like he didn’t belong in there. Just like in their first fight.
@Diego – Agree 🙂
I do like Juan Diaz as a trainer. He told Bradley like it was.
Juan?
The fight was fixed. Bradley let Pacman win to set up the big money rematch. Its why I don’t watch boxing. To much corruption. To much money involved and everyone is ducking and diving to keep pulling in the suckers. Good thing boxing fans typically are uneducated and will never catch on.
BS,
That’s idiotic. Have you even watched the fight? Bradley didn’t “let” Manny win. No one takes that kind of a whooping for 12 rounds. If you’re going to throw a fight, fake an injury or something.
And there will be no rubber match. As far 99.99% of the boxing world is concerned, Manny dominated Bradley twice. That 0.01% is the two judges who scored the first fight for Bradley, one of whom is no longer involved in boxing (thank God) so we probably shouldn’t count him.
There was no appetite for an immediate re-match the first time around because everyone saw how easily Manny handled Bradley – despite the crappy judging (which is prevalent in MMA as well by the way). It was only after Bradley’s subsequent victories and Manny’s loss to Marquez that the re-match became interesting.
As much as Simple Sampson is an anti-MMA shill, you’re an anti-boxing shill. Both sports have their good and bad points. On Saturday we saw another HOF performance from one of the best offensive fighters in the history of boxing and luckily the ref was good and so were the judges. What else can you ask for?
I’ll answer my own question – you can ask for better undercard matchups. But that’s about it.
She can BEG for that FARCE that is Rousey-Carano… Hahahahahahaha
Calm down Diego. I was doing to Boxing articles that Sampson Simpleton does on MMA articles. However when it comes to decisions. I agree MMA judges get it wrong at times in close fights. The problem is most MMA decisions are not all that close. Almost every single boxing match is close. There is so little that happens and the gap between the winner and loser of a round is so thin. The Judges almost never agree on who won what rounds. Its not just the judges but even the experts all cant agree on how many rounds each guy won and which rounds those were.
Brainsmasher confirming he’s just another troll.
For long winded comment in praise of all things UFC or cheap badly thought out shots at all things not UFC, BS is your man.
At the end of the day just another one adding to this sites trolling community.
She is a moody troll.
Pure UFC shill she admits to being 🙂
Jack, are you trolling this site by talking about people trolling the site?
Another succesful fight for pac man, I’m sure a better ppv than his last fight. Shows he still has something left, as a fighter and as a ppv draw. Pac has no choice but to keep fighting.