Ellerbe Brushes off Arum's Idea For an Outdoor Venue

By Ryan Burton

 

On Wednesday, BoxingScene.com conducted an interview with Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe (The full video interview is available in our video archive).  Floyd Mayweather's right hand man touched on a variety of subjects including Bob Arum's recent demands of holding a potential Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao clash towards the end of May so that a temporary outdoor stadium could be constructed to house the event.  Arum has speculated that an outdoor arena could bring anywhere from $40 to 60 million dollars in additional revenue.

 

Ellerbe feels that Arum is just putting another obstacle in the way of the fight.  He feels that there is plenty of time to promote the fight and that the fight has already promoted itself.  He also said that an outdoor arena in a dirt lot isn't necessary when the MGM Arena is already built and ready to host the fight in a more intimate, fan friendly atmosphere.

 

"This is ridiculous, another ridiculous excuse, that we would need more time to promote the fight.  How much damn time do you need?  This fight has been talked about for 2 years now," stated Ellerbe.

 

The Mayweather Promotions CEO doesn't see how an outdoor arena could generate as much revenue as Arum has speculated.  Even though Las Vegas traditionally has good weather in May, it remains to be seen if fans would be willing to pay top dollar for upper level seating in an outdoor arena built on a vacant lot.

 

"He (Arum) has said that this temporary stadium would generate $60 million, so if you do the math on that, that would be saying that the average ticket price for fans would be $1500 a ticket for some bleacher seats, I repeat for some bleacher seats, out in the middle of a dusty parking lot with temporary bathrooms. And this is the funny part, the farthest seat would be 100 yards away, the length of a football field," A smiling Ellerbe would tell BoxingScene.com

 

Another factor is the time needed to construct the temporary stadium.  Delays are common in the construction industry and it is also unknown how long it would take to get blueprints drawn up for the stadium and to have them approved by the city.  Ellerbe said that they can't take those chances with Mayweather having been ordered to turn himself in on June 1st.

 

"We don't have no wiggle room on our date. May 5th is our date and it is what it is.  So imagine the likelihood of this temporary venue that Mr. Arum is talking about not being ready. So that would mean that we would have to move the date.  Oh by the way, Mr. Mayweather has to surrender on June 1st, so therefore we couldn't do a fight.  Imagine that," Ellerbe explained.

 

Throughout Wednesday's press conference, both Ellerbe and Mayweather stated numerous times that their sole focus is on making a mega-fight with Manny Pacquiao on May 5th.  Ellerbe said that the biggest obstacle (random drug testing) has been agreed to by Pacquiao and that the other key issues could be ironed out very quickly.