How Successful Will "The Event" Be?

[javelin_fangs]

Full Disclosure: I'm a Mayweather fan; I wouldn't call myself a Pacquiao hater, but I'm sure a lot of Pacquiao fans would and that's fine, whatever.

My thing is this; Pacquiao walked away from the Mayweather fight. That's the truth of the matter. It may have been over principle or whatever, but Pacquiao walked away. He had a deal in place to fight Clottey probably after weeks of negotiation, while pretending to still be compromising on drug testing that he knew came nowhere near meeting the Mayweather position.

So, having walked away from the Mayweather fight, Pacquiao's main trump card in future negotiations with Mayweather will, ostensibly, be that Pacquiao is a bigger draw, more popular and exciting fighter, etc. Fine, whatever.

But here's my question, with all this talk of how popular Pacquiao is how success is "The Event" actually going to be. 25,000 tickets basically went to brokers/scalpers in hopes that the fight would sellout. But with Clottey, not Mayweather, in the other corner, what if the fight doesn't sell out? And even with popular ticket sellers like John Duddy, Jose Luis Castillo, Salvador Sanchez, Alfonso Gomez and others constantly being added to the undercard, what if those 25,000 tickets don't all get picked up? Ultimately, they're going to be given away dirt cheap.

And this is not a diss against Clottey, but do we really expect 1 mil PPV buys with Clottey? I give him a very good chance of winning, but Pacquiao fans aren't necessarily going to think so. Many of them think Pacquiao would knock anyone out and since many of those people have never heard of Clottey...well you know.

What happens if "The Event" just does ok? Maybe 30-35,000 semi papered crowd. Somewhere between 500-600k in PPV buys and Clottey wins 5 round or so. The money, the buys and the appeal of the fight won't match Mayweather-Mosley. Because whether it's fair or not, Mosley is considered more of a live dog than Clottey (personally, I think Clottey has a better chance of beating Pacquiao than Mosley does of beating Mayweather, but I'm probably one of few). So, even if Mayweather has trouble, a win will be considered impressive.

If the money for "The Event" is just fairly good, but dwarfs in comparison to Mayweather-Mosley and the prospective Mayweather-Pacquiao fight and Pacquiao struggles to beat Clottey (or God forbid, loses to Clottey) then was all of this pride against the so-called "Mayweather Rules" really worth it?

At the end of the day, Pacquiao walked away from the Mayweather fight and unless "The Event" is a huge blockbuster and an amazing fight, it was probably the wrong thing to do.

[AllEyesOpen]

I think your right, i doubt Pacquiao/Clottey well do that well, probably less then a million ppv buys, Cotto had a lot to do with his last fight selling. Regardless PBF/SSM will do much better. I think both Clottey have about the same chance at an upset, not impossible but not likely either.

[-Reflexes-]

About 500k.

[ИATAS]

I think the at the gate sales will be good, with 25,000 to 35,000 people buying tickets.

The PPV wont do as good as manny's recent fights, I predict between 600,000 to 800,000 buys.

Also, it depends a lot on how bob arum builds the card. And from the looks of it he's doing a ****ty job. They could increase the PPV buys by quite a bit if he could stack the card, but he's not.

Mawyeathers PPV will obviously do much better because he's fighting the better opponent in shane mosley.

[S.G.]

I think Pacquiao can account for ~700k whoever he fights now, so the fight will do no less than that.

It won't outsell Floyd-Mosley though. What will be more interesting will be to compare Floyd-Mosley buys with Pac-Cotto buys

[Gutz]

Mayweather walked away form Pac..

I feel everyone going to watch the fight to see if Pac can get passed Clottey so we can see Mayweather vs Pac at the end of the year..


I also feel that Mayweather vs Mosley will do more PPV sells..


I dont think Pac can knock out Clottey.. Clottey has a great chin..

[javelin_fangs]

I think the at the gate sales will be good, with 25,000 to 35,000 people buying tickets.

The PPV wont do as good as manny's recent fights, I predict between 600,000 to 800,000 buys.

Also, it depends a lot on how bob arum builds the card. And from the looks of it he's doing a ****ty job. They could increase the PPV buys by quite a bit if he could stack the card, but he's not.

Mawyeathers PPV will obviously do much better because he's fighting the better opponent in shane mosley.

Ok, but let's even go to your top end predictions. 35,000 tickets sold and 800k buys. That's probably something like $48-50 mil in revenues. So, let's consider that the ceiling. Jerry Jones needs his cut, in-Demand PPV needs its cut, HBO needs its cut, Arum needs his cut and Clottey gets a little bit of money too. Pacquiao ends up with something like $15 mil or whatever and there's almost nothing left for the undercard.

So, you get a bunch of guys who can sell a few hundred extra tickets who probably get something like $20-30k plus a percentage off the extra tickets their people sell. But the reward for that type of lame payday is a ****ty undercard. Name fighters against journeymen types. Which makes you top end of the ticket sales semi-believable, but really diminishes the likelihood of the top end of PPV sales.

In any case, Arum and Team Pacquiao will claim victory, but with such a dangerous fight was it really worth it?

[Sicario]

it will do about 100 k

[javelin_fangs]

Mayweather walked away form Pac..

I learned long ago that people will believe what they want to believe rather than believe the truth. But I'm just going to put this out there.

If Mayweather walked away from Pacquiao then answer these two questions;

1) Why were there three times during the months of December and January (before the failed arbitration) when Top Rank said the negotiations were over and that they were moving on, yet you heard no such stories from Team Mayweather or Golden Boy?

2) Why do people like Freddie Roach and Bob Arum feel the need to constantly speak for Mayweather and convince us that Pacquiao is so offended by Mayweather?
(If I want to know what Mayweather's position is Freddie Roach and Bob Arum are the last people who would know. I doubt either has actually spoken directly to Mayweather in years. And if Pacquiao is so pissed off at Mayweather wouldn't he want to get him in the ring to kick his a$$?)

[ИATAS]

Ok, but let's even go to your top end predictions. 35,000 tickets sold and 800k buys. That's probably something like $48-50 mil in revenues. So, let's consider that the ceiling. Jerry Jones needs his cut, in-Demand PPV needs its cut, HBO needs its cut, Arum needs his cut and Clottey gets a little bit of money too. Pacquiao ends up with something like $15 mil or whatever and there's almost nothing left for the undercard.

So, you get a bunch of guys who can sell a few hundred extra tickets who probably get something like $20-30k plus a percentage off the extra tickets their people sell. But the reward for that type of lame payday is a ****ty undercard. Name fighters against journeymen types. Which makes you top end of the ticket sales semi-believable, but really diminishes the likelihood of the top end of PPV sales.

In any case, Arum and Team Pacquiao will claim victory, but with such a dangerous fight was it really worth it?

what else can they do? Shane wasn't an option. The floyd fight didn't go through. They were left with Clottey, the ***ish kid, Pauli M, timothy bradly maybe.

I think clottey was the right choice. None of those other names jump out. At least clottey had been seen against cotto, no one knew any of the other guys.