Mayweather versus Pacquiao fight to break all boxing records

It has taken six years, but the feuding promoters have finally agreed a match that will rewrite boxing’s record book. The bout has generated so much interest one of the fighters will wear extra-long shorts to make room for advertising.

People ride escalators by signs advertising the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. John Locher / AP Photo

This coming weekend’s match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas is expected to generate record-breaking revenue and obliterate a host of other records at the box office.

The tie is so big, one of the fighters will be wearing extra-long shorts to make room for all the adverts.

Boxing is a sport which is known for its bombastic hyperbole, but in the build-up to what will be the most lucrative fight to date there has been less of it than usual. That is partly due to these continuing promotional disputes but there also seems to be a sense that this is one bout that quite simply sells itself.

Seats inside the MGM Garden Grand Arena are priced at between US$1,500 and $10,000, with fight fans paying $150 each for the 30,000 or so tickets available to watch the fight on closed circuit TV in Las Vegas. The gate receipts at the venue are likely to total in excess of $70 million, but incredibly the box office only opened last week.

This delay was caused because the bout involves two promotional companies whose relationship is normally one of outright antipathy. On the one side is Top Rank, which represents Pacquiao, and on the other is the eponymous company Mayweather set up to manage his career, with his influential adviser Al Haymon in the background.

When the tickets finally went on sale, they were snapped up in less than a minute and are reportedly changing hands on the secondary market for up to $100,000. Interest in this fight is so intense that it seems these promotional hiccups have done nothing to diminish the appetite of fans wanting to witness the action live in Las Vegas.

Mayweather is already the highest-paid athlete in the world, and the 38-year-old is set to receive a purse of US$180m, his highest payout yet, for facing Pacquiao with the Filipino projected to pocket $120m. The total amount will be dependent upon the quantity of pay-per-view (PPV) buys, with this fight expected to smash all existing records.

It looks set to be the most lucrative sporting event of all time, with predictions that more than four million American households will purchase a PPV package at a cost of between $89.95 and $99.95. If this forecast is accurate, the fight could generate close to half a billion dollars in revenue.

PPV numbers will be the single most decisive factor in determining just how much income this event brings in, but they are far from the sole source of revenue. International broadcast sales are worth about $35m, bars across North America will pay about $13m to televise the fight and sponsorship should be worth a further $12m.

A bidding war broke out in Mexico where two beverage companies went head to head for the right to sponsor a fight between a Filipino and an American. Tecate and Corona were reportedly desperate to secure exclusive sponsorship rights, and it was the former which prevailed, paying a price of $5.6m.

This will also be the first time in history that audiences in Las Vegas are asked to pay just for the privilege of witnessing two fighters stepping on the scales. Tickets to the weigh-in will cost $10 in a measure which was taken to prevent fight fans from camping out overnight rather than out of raw financial greed, with the proceeds going to charity.

Pacquiao will also be wearing an unusually long pair of shorts, but not because he wants to make a fashion statement. The extra space will be used to accommodate additional advertisers, with companies paying a collective $1.5m just to see their logos appear on the shorts of the Filipino congressman.

At one stage the UAE was reportedly the front-runner to host this fight, with a representative of an investment group making a highly publicised $160m collective purse offer to Pacquiao and Mayweather. That deal never materialised, but within a few months of the offer being made the match was confirmed for Las Vegas.

Instead fight fans in the UAE wanting to witness the action live will have to choose between two options. They can either stay up until the 5am start on Sunday (May 3), to watch it on OSN Box Office 1 for a PPV price of $34, or head to one of six Novo Cinemas, where a ticket to a live screening will cost $27 with breakfast included.

Amid all the incessant number-crunching, this promises to be a mouthwatering sporting spectacle. The smart money is on Mayweather but the undefeated American is not universally popular, and there is tremendous appetite among the public to see Pacquiao put the first blemish on that perfect 47-0 professional record.

When the ringside bell sounds to begin the first round in Las Vegas economic considerations will be set aside, at least until the fight’s outcome has been determined.

Once the dust has settled attention will inevitably turn to just how much revenue the event itself has generated, and all indications suggest that it will be a record-breaking figure of between $400m and $500m.

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