Before the big fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, many boxing, sports marketing and business experts had various projections for revenues. There were few doubts that the fight was going to create history as former HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg said “I have no doubt in my mind that this fight will set the record [but] how high will it go?”
Days after the fight, that question is finally answered as bean counters are almost done sorting through receipts, balance sheets and bank statements to ascertain, once and for all, the number of records broken, revenues generated and also how much the various stakeholders made.
While it may not have lived up to expectations in the ring, the fight lived up to its billings as regards revenue projections.
Here is a summary of how much revenue was generated via pay per view (PPV) buys and revenues as well as broadcast rights sales, live gates, closed circuit broadcast and sponsorship.
PPV revenue was always going to account for the largest slice of the pie and it did. The final numbers, jointly announced by HBO and Showtime, revealed that there was a total of 4.4 million buys which surpasses the previous record of 2.4 million buys set during the 2007 fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Mayweather.
PPV revenues also smashed the $400 million ceiling-with prices set at $89.95 for regular views and $99.95 for High Definition views, breaking the $150 million record set for Mayweather’s fight against Canelo Alvarez in 2013.
The live gates revenue for paid attendance, according to the Nevada Athletic Commission, stood at 16,219. The gates generated around $71 million- another record. The gate earnings surpassed the current record ($20 million) by $50 million and is greater than the sum of gate earnings for both of Mayweather’s last two big fights in Nevada- $20 million against Alvarez and $18 million against De La Hoya.
MGM Resorts recorded revenues of $6.9 million from closed-circuit broadcast tickets as the fight was unavailable on pay per view in Las Vegas and as such people interested had to pay to watch on closed-circuit at various MGM properties across Las Vegas. Closed-circuit tickets were sold at $150.
Sponsorship brought in over $11 million with Paramount Pictures, Weinstein Company, Mexico Tourism Board, Smart Communications and Tecate beer all paying millions in sponsorship dollars
About a week before the fight, revenue from international broadcast sales were estimated at $35 million but with more international distribution deals agreed only two days before the fight, that figure could well be dwarfed. In total, rights for the fight was distributed in 175 countries.
The final big number for revenue generated from the mega fight will surpass $500 million from all indications.
