Mayweather and Pacquiao top list of World’s highest paid athletes

By Boxing News - 06/11/2015 - Comments

Floyd Mayweather vs Manny PacquiaoBy Chris Williams: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) and Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) have topped Forbe’s list as the top two highest paid athletes in 2015. Mayweather came in at No.1 with $300 million. That’s $285 million in salary plus $15 million in endorsements.

Pacquiao was No.2 at $160 million. Of that total, $12 million came from endorsements. Neither fighter compares to golfer Tiger Woods $48 million endorsements, tennis star Roger Federer with $58 million in terms of endorsements.

Mayweather and Pacquiao made most of the loot from their fight on May 2nd, which was called the “Fight of the Century” by some. It wasn’t a great fight because Pacquiao fought in a timid manner for most of the 12 round bout, and failed to go after Mayweather like he needed to in order to have a chance of beating him.

With the cash that Mayweather and Pacquiao made for their big money fight, it wouldn’t be surprising if they get together to face each other again next year. Mayweather has already ruled out a rematch against Pacquiao after hearing about his shoulder excuse after the fight.

Mayweather saw that as a cowardly move on Pacquiao’s part to bring up an injury, and saying he was only at 60 percent. However, Mayweather might change his mind about not wanting to fight Pacquiao again if the Filipino star grovels a little bit, and gives Mayweather credit for having beaten him.

If Pacquiao does this, then maybe Mayweather might see fit to give him another fight. But a lot of things would still be different from their May 2nd fight. The money would obviously be less for both because the fight was a disappointment to a lot of fans, and those fans might not want to pay big money to see another fight that fails to please.

Another thing that will clearly need to change in the rematch is purse split of the money. Mayweather got a 60-40 split of the revenue for their May 2nd fight. But for a rematch, you would have to expect the split to increase in Mayweather’s favor to 70-30 or 75-25.

If Pacquiao and his promoter Bob Arum fail to agree to Mayweather getting an even bigger split, then there probably won’t be a rematch. It’s as simple as that. Mayweather certainly isn’t going to give Pacquiao the same 60-40 split of the loot that he did last time, and he definitely won’t be giving him a better split.

Arum thinks Pacquiao should get a better split of the money the second time around, which is laughable because it would be rewarding Pacquiao for failure.

“The fact that he [Mayweather] won the fight, what does that mean? The two of them together created such a bonanza — numbers we’ve never seen before — and without Manny, who could Floyd create a bonanza like that with?” Arum said via Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. “And without Mayweather, who is Manny going to fight to create as much money? Maybe we should get more than the 40 percent. They need each other to create this kind of money.”

If Arum continues with the stance that Pacquiao should get more than 40 percent for a rematch against Mayweather, then I don’t see how they can ever face each other again because I think the starting negotiations will likely begin with Mayweather with an 80-20 split. From there, Mayweather might agree to 70-30, but I can’t see him giving Pacquiao any better deal than that.



Comments are closed.