Early PPV buys for May/Ortiz solid...trending 1.75 million buys

Golden Boy's Richard Schaefer: Big PPV sales coming for Victor Ortiz-Floyd Mayweather fight Published: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 10:45 PM Updated: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 10:47 PM By David Mayo | The Grand Rapids Press LAS VEGAS -- Richard Schaefer pulled two folded sheets of paper from the pocket of his sportscoat, filled with computer-generated numerals so tiny they were barely legible. With that spreadsheet, Schaefer said he would be able to project, with extraordinary accuracy, what Floyd Mayweather will earn Saturday night for fighting Victor Ortiz. "It's a pretty sophisticated approach," Schaefer said. "Maybe it's the banker in me coming out." Mayweather makes more than half of his fight-related income from back-end television percentages since crossing into the pay-per-view realm, which makes determining his boxing income impossible for anyone without intimate knowledge of his contracts. But Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions and a former Swiss banker, said that once he knows the final pay-per-view numbers, he can consult his spreadsheet and determine within $100,000 what Mayweather will earn from the initial financial windfall. For a fighter who makes "$40 million, $50 million a fight," Schaefer said, the ability to accurately predict Mayweather's pay -- which includes percentages of profits from domestic and foreign pay-per-view, closed-circuit, delayed television rights, live gate, sponsorship, merchandising and program sales -- fosters confidence in their relationship. Schaefer predicted Ortiz-Mayweather would do at least 1.5 million buys, which would place it behind Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya -- and just ahead of Mayweather-Shane Mosley -- as the second-best-selling non-heavyweight fight ever. More than 98 percent of pay-per-view purchases are made on the day of the fight, so projecting the final number is an inexact science. But by using advance purchase figures provided by satellite providers, and comparing them to other fights at the same juncture of fight week, a promoter can get some indication of where the final numbers might land. Schaefer said he could begin to gauge advance sales late Wednesday and will use Mayweather's two most recent fights, against Juan Manuel Marquez (1.25 million domestic buys) and Mosley (1.45 million) as benchmarks. "Let's say the pattern shows that every day we're 20 percent above Mosley, or we're 30 percent or 40 percent above Marquez," Schaefer said. "Then, that gives us an indication that the numbers should be somewhere in the 1.7 or 1.8 million range." When Mayweather-De La Hoya set the pay-per-view record of 2.44 million, the numbers were so far into "uncharted territory" that Schaefer said no one knew exactly how to interpret them. "We knew we hit a home run," he said, "we just didn't know how far out of the park."