The Sports Business Journal reports that Top Rank will not seek a distributor for Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Jessie Vargas on Saturday, November 5th.
There will not be shoulder programming (i.e. HBO 24/7s) to help promote the fight. Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, could lose out on rights fees from the rebroadcast of the fight. According to the Sports Business Journal, recent rights fees ranged from $350,000 to $800,000.
On the bright side for Top Rank, not partnering with HBO means it save 3 to 4 percent of the gross revenue from PPVs that it produces and distributes.
Payout Perspective:
There’s a reason that most promoters seek to partner with a PPV distributor. The marketing and promotion of fight is paid for instead of the promoter in exchange for a cut of the PPV revenue. We’ve seen the marketing dollars explode for a fight like Mayweather-Canelo three years ago. Pacquiao-Vargas is not May-Canelo. The lack of partner reflects more on the lackluster fight put together than an opportunity for Top Rank or the fact that HBO is dedicating its PPV budget on Ward-Kovalev.
Pacquiao is simply fighting for money at this point, simply fighting to pay taxes and debts. If Arum is not careful he is going to have a year of nothing but financial losses…..put manny in there with a big name next time out or no one at all will be interested
I think its a strategy for arum to build pacman up again to fans…pacman gave a very good fight against tim bradley,but getting him jessie vargas who is flatfooted and is aggressive and wants to engage can result with a k.o. win for pacman,adding that that he got cheap seats ticket and putting donaire on the undercard to attract energetic fans to the event and add to the excitement to tv broadcast…
Not buying, this fight is a joke to be on PPV. I’ll save my money and play some blackjack instead.
Fight Fan, I’m with you. Put it on HBO or Showtime for free and I’ll watch. Pay $60 for it? No way.
I wonder how much Manny is guaranteed. If it’s his usual $20M then Arum is going to take a bath on this.
no way this fight will sell well im calling 300 k or less, the public interest in pac is almsot gone now, he is broke and needs money nothing more.
60 bucks for this ! bob arum is on drugs if he thinks this will sell well.