By Sizzle JKD: Much has been made about the pay-per-view money split between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. It has reportedly been agreed upon by both camps that Mayweather will be receiving 60% of the pay-per-view split and Pacquiao will get 40% once the fight is made.
Speaking with Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports on Friday, Golden Boy Promotions founder Oscar De Le Hoya said that although Mayweather holds the leverage in the negotiations with Pacquiao, he isn’t surprised that Pacquiao is getting 40% of the pot while Floyd only received 20% when Mayweather fought De La Hoya in 2007.
“I think when I fought Mayweather, I got an 80/20 split,” De La Hoya told Yahoo Sports. “You have to remember, at that point, Mayweather was not really an established pay-per-view star and I was. The leverage at that point was all on my side.”
The Golden Boy added, “I had been selling a lot of pay-per-view for a long time and so I had the upper hand.”
Indeed, prior to the Mayweather bout, De La Hoya had already amassed a total of 10.45 million PPV buys, according to BoxRec.com. This included his mega-fight with Felix Trinidad which did 1.4 million, at the time the most watched non-heavyweight pay-per-view event in the history of boxing. De La Hoya also surpassed 1 million buys against Bernard Hopkins and almost hit a million in his fights versus Ricardo Mayorga, Shane Mosley II, and Fernando Vargas.
Mayweather, on the other hand, only had a total of 1.07 million pay-per-view buys in three fights prior to facing De La Hoya, according to numbers released by HBO. He did 365,000 buys for the Arturo Gatti fight, 374,000 in the Zab Judah bout, and 325,000 in the Carlos Baldomir snoozefest.
Because De La Hoya’s reputation, street cred, revenue history, fan base, popularity, and appeal all trumped that of Mayweather’s, there is no question why Oscar was the undeniable “A-Side” and Floyd the clear-cut “B-Side.”
But when you compare Mayweather with Pacquiao, the story changes drastically.
“It’s different with Mayweather and Pacquiao, in my opinion,” De La Hoya said to Yahoo Sports. “Manny Pacquiao, let’s be honest, he’s already a pay-per-view star too. He’s done big numbers. So it’s not the same in my opinion as it was when I was negotiating to fight Mayweather because of that.”
And the facts surely support De La Hoya’s statement.
According to Forbes.com, Floyd has earned a total of $420 million in his career, Pacquiao has earned $335 million. Floyd has 14.2 million career PPV buys, Pacquiao has 13.6 million career PPV buys. Floyd has broken 1 million PPV buys seven times in his career, Pacquiao has done over 1 million PPV six times. Floyd has generated $860 million in his career in PPV revenue, Pacquiao has generated $755 million.
When it comes to revenue, popularity, and pay-per-view generated in their respective careers, the numbers between Mayweather and Pacquiao are comparably closer than the huge disparity between the numbers for Mayweather and De La Hoya when they began negotiations in 2006.
Furthermore, Pacquiao has a tremendous worldwide fan base as he is arguably more popular than Mayweather in two other continents – Asia and Australia.
De La Hoya added, “If you look at Mayweather’s numbers closely, I think you have to set aside the fight with Canelo [which did 2.2 million sales] because that was a special case and after that, they’re pretty close in what they sell, even if Mayweather is a little ahead of Pacquiao.”
What De La Hoya probably meant is that Mayweather’s fight with Alvarez may have been an anomaly in that Alvarez most likely brought with him at least 50% of the fans because of Alvarez’ huge following among the Mexican fan base. Had it been another lower level fighter, Mayweather’s numbers would have been significantly lower. His lower-than-usual numbers in the Robert Guerrero and Marcos Maidana fights lend credence to De La Hoya’s statement.
For these reasons, we see why Mayweather had no problems reportedly agreeing to a 60/40 split with Pacquiao. Mayweather knows the business side of the game well and because Pacquiao is a proven commodity in the sport, Mayweather’s senses guided him in the proper direction to agree to give Manny his well-deserved 40% split.
In spite of Floyd’s past comments stating that Pacquiao would only get a $40 million flat fee and that Pacquiao no longer deserved 50% because of his recent losses, Mayweather did the right thing by giving Pacquiao his just due. For those who disparage Mayweather and say that he is greedy and will price himself out of the fight, nothing can be further from the truth. Mayweather deserves the respect for agreeing to 60/40, based on each fighter’s overall numbers and overall reputation in the sport.
Some will continue to say Pacquiao deserves at least 45% or even 50%, but when you analyze all of the factors at play, 40% is extremely reasonable.
Pacquiao and Top Rank have acquiesced to all of Mayweather’s demands as Floyd is rightfully the “A-Side” in the negotiations. But don’t get it twisted and call Manny the “B-Side” because if Manny were the “B-Side” like Guerrero, Ortiz, Maidana, and Miguel Cotto all were, then Manny would be receiving no more than $10 million for this fight.
At the end of the day, having Mayweather and Pacquiao join forces to formulate a blockbuster event of unprecedented magnitude such as this one wouldn’t possible if either fighter fought someone else. And because of this, Pacquiao should be considered the undisputed “A-minus Side.”
Boxing fans should finally lay all of this “A-Side/B-Side” talk to rest and focus on debating much more important things than how much the fighters are getting paid because after all, neither Floyd nor Manny are paying any of us to watch them fight. We are the ones who are coming out of pocket big time to watch this fight, and when you begin to budget how much you’re going to spend come May 2nd, there is not a single person on this planet who’s going to care who is A-Side or B-Side.
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