By Chris Williams: The Manny Pacquiao vs. Brandon Rios press tour well be getting underway this coming Saturday, July 27th in Macao, China to build up their November 23rd fight at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.
Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum wants Pacquiao and Rios to start out the press tour in China in order to try and drum up interest in the fight in that country first before heading over to the U.S start a media tour there. The Pacquiao-Rio will be selling for $5 in the Chinese market on pay per view.
On July 30th, Pacquiao and Rios will travel to Beijing, China as part of the second city of the press tour. The next day on July 31st, they’ll be in Shanghai. On August 3rd, they’ll take the media tour to Singapore.
From there they’ll travel stop by ESPN headquarters on August 5th in Bristol, Connecticut. Rios and Pacquiao will in New York on August 6th, and then wrap up the tour on August 8th in Los Angeles.
As you can see, most of the tour will consist of Pacquiao and Rios visiting Asia. This isn’t an accident. Arum is trying to open new markets for his fighters, and he’s hoping to make Pacquiao a big star over there, as well in the U.S. Pacquiao is a star in the Philippines but he’s not yet become a star in China.
If Arum is successful in doing that with the short amount of time that Pacquiao has left in his career, they’re potentially going to make a lot of money on PPV. The money that they can make from China is astronomical even with the fight selling for only $5.
There are a lot of potential boxing fans in China that Arum can pool from him if he’s able to turn him into a star over there. I’m not sure that Arum is going to be able to pull this off, because has lost his last two fights and he may lose this fight as well.
The Chinese might not like the idea of paying to see someone lose all the time. I think they’ll get a lot to pay to see Pacquiao fight this time, but if he gets knocked cold again, I see the PPV numbers dropping the next time Arum tries to peddle one of Pacquiao’s PPV fights to the Chinese market.
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