By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao is going to be making big bucks for his November 13th fight against Antonio Margarito next month. The two fighters will be competing for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title at the Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. It’s not really division that’s staked with talent, but Pacquiao is interested in capturing another world title, which would be his 8th title in as many divisions. In an article at Inquirer.net, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum says “Manny is guaranteed $15 million for the fight and including his share from the pay-per-view upside, he could make as much as $22 million to $25 million.” That’s big bucks for a fight that isn’t drawing a lot of interest outside of the diehard Pacquiao and Margarito fans.
It would be interesting to know how much Arum is making for the fight. Since he promotes both Pacquiao and Margarito, presumably this would mean more money. Margarito is guaranteed a minimum of $3 million, but could make as much as $8 million if the fight does really well on PPV and registers Arum’s predicted number of 1.3 million PPV buys. That may not happen, because those were the numbers for Pacquiao’s fight with Oscar De La Hoya, and Margarito is not nearly as popular as Oscar. Additionally, the price for the Pacquiao-Margarito fight is a steep $55, which is strange given that it’s a fight that appears to be a huge mismatch on paper.
With Margarito’s recent problems with his hand wraps, you think this fight should be aggressively priced at say $30 or less. I don’t see this as a $30 fight, but more like a $10 bout $5, but you get the idea. By putting a huge price tag of $55 on the card, it puts a lot of stress on the diehard boxing fans that will be paying to see this fight. Casual boxing fans, ones that aren’t very familiar with either of them, may not be willing to pay that kind of money in this economy. This is why the numbers will likely be pooled form the loyal fans for Pacquiao and Margarito.
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