By Jason Kim: Floyd Mayweather Jr. made a mistake of lining up the MGM Grand for his next fight on May 5th instead of keeping his options open. By doing this, Mayweather effectively cut off any potential for a fight against WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao due to the limited seating capacity of the MGM Grand, which only seats 18,000 boxing fans.
Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, wants to get the most money for his fighter in a bout against Mayweather and a small 18,000 arena is a bad way of doing that.
Arum told the Manilla Bulletin “You have to maximize the [the money]. We’re going to lose $20 million [if the fight takes place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas].”
Arum wants to have a 45,000 seat makeshift arena created on the Vegas strip specifically for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. Arum sees this bringing in an extra $20 million to bring in a total of $40 million and he doesn’t want to settle for less by throwing away $20 million.
Arum is right by wanting to do this. Since there’s no chance of putting the fight in a large stadium, then the best thing for Arum to do is to have a big arena created so that they can get as many fans as possible. But I think Arum needs to have the arena adjustable so that they can possibly fit more than 45,000 fans if tickets sales skyrocket. What you don’t want to do is underestimate the crowd for the fight because it could be a lot more than 45,000 fans who will be looking to buy tickets to this mega fight.
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