By Dan Ambrose: With the news that the fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao could be announced within hours or perhaps a day from now, Showtime vice president of Sports Stephen Espinoza is already seeing the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight as the biggest fight that has ever taken place in the sport of boxing.
The fight is said to have a pot of $250 million with Mayweather set to bring home $150 million and Pacquiao $100 million. With money like that, Pacquiao can pay off any bills that he might have in his life that he may or may not have to deal with.
“If Floyd & SHO have their way, we’ll have the biggest fight ever on 5/2,” Espinoza said on his twitter.
The Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight will easily eclipse the Mayweather vs. Oscar De La Hoya, Mayweather vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Mike Tyson vs. Lennox Lewis bouts as the biggest pay-per-view bouts in the history of the sport. It’s expected to bring in over 3 million+ pay-per-view buys.
The cost of the fight is said to be $100 on pay-per-view, although that has yet to be confirmed. Top Rank and Mayweather Promotions can mention a pay-per-view number, but that number will likely be less than what the cable networks charge for the fight, because they can always tack on higher amount if they so wish. But as of now, $100 for American boxing fans is the number I’m hearing for the fight.
You would have to assume that’s for the regular non-high definition broadcast of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.
If you want to see it on high definition, then we’re probably talking about it going for $110 a pop. If you’re talking about the 3 million pay-per-view buys, then can easily take you to the 300 million point, and we’re not even counting the gate for the fight from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The fight will be a sellout, no doubt, and the tickets quite expensive. With the gate money, Mayweather and Pacquiao could stand to make a ton of money in this fight. If more than 3 million boxing fans purchase the fight, then it’s even better for the two fighters.
There’s never been a fight like this before, so it’s really difficult to predict how many fans will be purchasing it on pay-per-view. But it’s reasonable to assume that we’re probably looking at over 3 million buys.
“Manny has 100 percent signed his side of the deal,” said a source to the Telegraph.co.uk. “It is now over to Mayweather to close out the deal and announce the fight.”
Just when Mayweather will sign his portion of the contract is up for debate. If Pacquiao signed his contract, then it means that Mayweather already agreed to the negotiation points that have kept them in a stall for the past couple of weeks. Mayweather should therefore sign the contract fast so that the fight can become official.
What’s not known is whether HBO and Showtime have agreed on their side of the negotiations. Nothing has been said about that recently, and it’s unclear if they’ve reached agreement or if this is going to be an area that will need to be worked through before the fight can go ahead.
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