By Keith Idec
The Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Conor McGregor fight will indeed cost just about $100 to watch in HD.
The Los Angeles Times’ Lance Pugmire first reported Monday that Showtime Pay-Per-View has set the price for Mayweather-McGregor at $89.95 to view in SD and $99.95 to watch in HD. That was the expected pay-per-view price since the fight was officially announced June 14 due to the intense interest in the August 26 bout in Las Vegas.
The price is the same that HBO Sports and Showtime Sports charged for the joint telecast of the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao welterweight title fight in May 2015. That long-awaited bout drew a record of roughly 4.6 million buys and helped the overall revenue from the event to exceed $600 million.
Mayweather-Pacquiao drew criticism from hardcore and casual boxing fans alike because it lacked action, but it was a bout boxing fans had wanted to see for more than five years. Mayweather-McGregor generally is considered a mismatch because Las Vegas’ Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs), despite that he is 40 years old and hasn’t fought in nearly two years, retired as the best boxer, pound-for-pound, in the world.
McGregor, meanwhile, is the one of mixed martial arts’ best fighters, but has never participated in a professional boxing match. The trash-talking Irish southpaw is 21-3 in MMA, including 18 knockouts.
The four-day, four-city press tour to promote Mayweather-McGregor is set to begin Tuesday afternoon at Staples Center in Los Angeles. It’ll continue Wednesday at the Budweiser Stage in Toronto and Thursday at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, before ending Friday at Wembley Arena in London.
Tickets to the 12-round, 154-pound fight have not gone on sale, in part because T-Mobile Arena hasn’t been officially announced as the venue due to a scheduling conflict.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.