Pacquiao’s fight in Macao against Rios makes it tough on his U.S fans to see him

By Boxing News - 07/28/2013 - Comments

pac88By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) may be saving a lot of money in taxes by choosing to fight his November 23rd fight against Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) in Macho, China, but the move also really hurts the ability for Pacquiao’s U.S based fans to come see him fight because of the high cost of travel to China in addition to cost of the tickets themselves.

The tickets go for $115 to $1,275 per ticket. But the cost of a roundtrip flight to China and back would likely be in the range of $2000. That’s not even counting the other extra costs like food, hotel, taxi and other expenses. Unless you’re doing really well financially, it’s going to be serious hardship for many of Pacquiao’s fans in U.S to travel to see him.

They can still pay to see him on pay per view, but a lot of these fans have been coming to his fights in Las Vegas for years and now they have a huge hurdle of having to travel to China each time he fights.

If Pacquiao loses to Rios on November 23rd then I don’t know how many more times he’ll be fighting. Pacquiao will be in an Andre Berto situation where he’s lost several times in a short period of time. But with Berto, you’re not paying tons of money to see him on PPV or in travel costs to see him fight in China.

With Pacquiao, his fights are still being shown on PPV despite his recent failures in the ring. How much longer Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum can continue to make his fights PPV will be the big question if he keeps losing. My guess is he’ll continue to be PPV until the end of his career regardless of whether the numbers start plummeting from loss after loss.

I think with Pacquiao having lost 2 out of his last 3 fights and possibly verge of a 3rd loss, Bob Arum of Top Rank needs to reduce the PPV cost of the Rios fight to say the $5-10 range to reflect the fact that Pacquiao is no longer a champion and is losing more than he’s winning nowadays. I can’t imagine paying to see a fighter that has lost 2 out of his last 3 fights. I just doesn’t make sense. As such, I think Arum should give Pacquiao’s loyal fans a gift by having his fight against Rios go for something like $5.99 to make up for all the losses and the fact that he’s now fighting outside of the U.S in Macao and out of range for many of his fans.



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