What revenue split should Pacquiao get for the Mayweather fight?

By Boxing News - 06/19/2010 - Comments

By Chris Williams: The Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. mega fight is rumored to be stalled over the purse split between the two fighters, with Mayweather wanting a bigger share of the profits and Pacquiao wanting to get at least a 50-50 deal. But does Pacquiao deserve 50% based on his recent pay per view numbers? His last fight brought in only 700,000 compared to the 1.4 million that Mayweather came in with for his fight against Shane Mosley.

Mayweather’s fights against Oscar De La Hoya and Juan Manuel Marquez have also done a lot better than Pacquiao’s fights against the same two fighters. So, shouldn’t Mayweather then get a bigger purse split than Pacquiao and if so, how much more? I think 60-40 is pretty reasonable number because Mayweather has shown to be the bigger draw and there won’t be a huge fight without involved.

Pacquiao may want to get half of the revenue but he’s not the bigger PPV star and he’s also not unbeaten like Mayweather. Being unbeaten counts for a lot, especially when those victories have come against top opposition. There are some fighters that are unbeaten but their wins have come against 2nd tier opposition and their records are thus highly inflated.

Mayweather’s record isn’t like that. He’s fought nothing but the best and beaten them soundly ever time. Pacquiao has already been beaten several times in his career. He may be an exciting fighter but doesn’t have that zero in the loss column like Mayweather. And he hasn’t been bringing in the same PPV numbers as Mayweather. Should people ignore that and give Pacquiao and even split with Mayweather despite the fact that Mayweather is generating more buys than Pacquiao.

You can’t ignore that because boxing is a part of show business and Mayweather is doing a better job right now of putting backsides in the seats. That’s what counts the most. Pacquiao is a popular fighter, but he’s not getting the same numbers as Mayweather. Because of that, I think Pacquiao deserves no better than 40 percent of the revenue. He’s got to bring in the numbers and he’s just doing that to the same extent that Mayweather is right now. It’s not good enough that Pacquiao has a certain segment of society that follows his fights religiously; Pacquiao needs the big numbers that Mayweather is bringing in if he wants to get a 50-50 or better deal with Mayweather.



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