By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum isn’t all that excited about the Pacquiao’s mega fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr will be taking place in the 16,000 seat MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada on 5/2 rather than in a larger venue. Arum is willing to go along with the program and have the fight staged there, but he would prefer that the fight be staged at a larger venue.
Arum has talked in the past about a large outdoor stadium needing to be built in order to maximize profits for a Pacquiao-Mayweather clash. It’s a fight that if Arum had his way, he’d possibly like to stick it in a large stadium the size of the 90,000 seat Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Of course, Mayweather would probably never go along with fighting in Texas rather than in his own hometown of Las Vegas.
“To me it doesn’t do boxing justice being in a small arena like that,” Arum said via the nypost.com. “But if that’s what it takes to make the fight, that’s what we’ll do.”
Even in a larger stadium, it’s unclear how much more additional money that can be made. The big money comes from pay-per-view. The gate money is a lot smaller in comparison, and Arum is probably talking about chump change in the large scheme of things.
The money that Mayweather could potentially make by fighting in Texas could likely be returned to him by a good advertising campaign and a tour of the world and the United States with Pacquiao to publicize the fight. Fighting in a larger venue isn’t going to make much of a difference to the bottom line unless you’re counting every nickel that can be made.
Mayweather isn’t going to go for fighting in UAE, Macau or the Philippines, and he’s not going to be on board with fighting in Texas.
It would be interesting to see where Arum would stick the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight if he had his way. Would Arum take the fight to Macau in order to save Pacquiao on the U.S tax money that’s taken out, or would Arum look to place it in another foreign country in a stadium fight?
It would be a nightmare for U.S boxing fans and the media to have travel around the world to see the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight in terms of travel costs and the hassle of getting a passport.
If Arum did stage the fight in the United States, he’d likely look to place it at the Cowboys Stadium like he did with Pacquiao in his fights against Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito. However, as I mentioned before, I doubt that the difference in the gate revenue would be enough to justify moving the fight.
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