The Great Mystery- How many bought Mayweather vs. Ortiz

[flipbjefrox]

Surprisingly, to some, the pay-per-view figures on the Floyd Mayweather-Victor Ortiz fight have not yet been released. Please understand that this is something that customarily comes within four or five business days after the fight, in the form of a press release, but that hasn’t come, and the fight was September 17.
What usually happens in this business is that when the figures are very good, the distributor (HBO PPV) will want the whole world to know about it, as soon as possible. When the numbers aren’t so hot, they are not so anxious to let that out.
This is what has led to speculation that the number of subscribers to this fight was much lower than anticipated.
What I have heard is that they might be as low as 800,000. This is something I definitely did not figure on, as Ortiz, and just as importantly, Canelo Alvarez, should have had some appeal to the very dependable Latin audience. I was expecting a million buyers. Others I had spoken to figured it might be as high as 1.3 million.
Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, which was one of the promoters of this show, was talking in terms of 1.7 million or even more, but of course, he had a special motivation for thinking in that direction. If he really believed it, he might be very surprised by now.
This story is written with the proviso that we may never know the real figures, unless we were an interested party or had the facilities to audit every cable system in the country, which we don’t. It simply isn’t public knowledge.

[flipbjefrox]

As such, we have to rely on the information we get from HBO PPV. And we haven’t heard anything.
Could it be that the numbers are so bad that they can’t even “spin” it?
If they are truly very disappointing, that weakens Mayweather’s position in relation to any fight that may be discussed now, or in the future, with Manny Pacquiao. It would not bring Floyd closer to the table, but rather, create more of a gap in prospective negotiations, because he can almost be counted on to ask for an outrageous figure. That becomes even more outrageous if he has less drawing power than expected.
So you can imagine that Bob Arum has probably been rooting for them to bomb. If the Mayweather-Pacquiao talks ever become serious, it will give him a leg up with regard to getting more money for his side (the Pacquiao side), but what it may also due is reaffirm what many believe to be his own preferred course of action, which is to continue putting Pacquiao in high-earning pay-per-view fights (such as the upcoming clash with Juan Manuel Marquez) that carry a minimum of risk.
The MGM Grand was not sold out for the fight. There were about 9000 seats that were reported as “paid,” although many of those are comps given to casino players that are taxed by the Nevada commission. That is a disappointing turnout for someone who is supposed to be a “game-changer” when it comes to the business of boxing; indeed, someone who participated in the highest-grossing pay-per-view fight to date.
David Mayo correctly pointed out in the Grand Rapids News a few weeks ago that Mayweather has over 1.5 million Twitter followers, ranking him 15th among all sports figures, and that should bring with it a certain amount of selling strength.
But when you have to, in effect, act as your own promoter, and are inexperienced with it, you stand a chance of encountering a few bumps in the road. Mayweather was guaranteed the first $25 million out of pay-per-view, outside of HBO PPV’s percentage. For him to have gotten to that point, there would have to be in the neighborhood of 900,000 pay-per-view subscribers buying the fight. An exact figure on that is not completely certain because there was a slightly higher price for customers with high-definition TV.
What I’m wondering is, given Mayweather’s role as fighter/promoter and his position with the pay-per-view revenues, and considering the ground he could lose to Pacquiao if his figures were a downer, whether he has some kind of say in having those PPV figures released, and how they are spun.
Remember, everything is negotiable. Just some food for thought…..


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[Money Team.]

you have a thread on this already on the front page............maybe they'll release those numbers along with manny-mosleys...so ya'll can have some more sh1t to moan about

[Phil Ivey]

Kind of like Pac-Mosley??

[flipbjefrox]

pac vs. mosley were actually reported by espn, yahoo, maxboxing, and much more reputable websites. meanwhile, even richard schafer is ashame of the numbers he wouldnt even speak of it in fear of being corrected by hbo

[Strictly_UG]

pac mosley was 1.3 mil

[flipbjefrox]

hopkins vs. dawson might actually turn out to be more profitable than star power given that this fight had little promotion but star power had 10+ million promotion put into it

[mathed]

I didn't buy it....

[flipbjefrox]

Originally Posted by mathed

I didn't buy it....

nobody bought it plus they had to issue many many refund

[retnuocllup]

it is very weird how floyd/ortiz numbers are not out yet