The Big Business of Mayweather-Pacquiao

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Saturday’s championship boxing bout in Las Vegas is touted as the fight of a century merely in its 15th year. That thusly seems premature considering the greatest boxers of the period may not yet be born, but based on what we already know about this place and time, the opulence of Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s financially astronomic welterweight title clash with Manny Pacquiao makes sense for a new gilded age.

For six years, boxing fans and the general public clamored to watch the two best boxers of their generation step into a ring and fight. Here it is, signed, sealed and less than a week away, though only a select few will be able to get close enough to the buffet at the MGM Grand let alone inside the casino hotel’s buzzing arena on fight night.

Is this what the public desperately desired? Or is the 21st Century bout of all bouts reserved for another class, the one percent who emerged in recent years as more influential and powerful than at any time since the 1920s?

A torrent of statistics and reports about the fight’s immense fiscal features has oozed from the media since the bout was officially announced in March. From ticket receipts to sponsorship to pay-per-view revenue, everything about this event has blown away previous records, in part because revenue potentially doubled in size over the six years it took to make.

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The money involved tells the tale. Some examples, via ESPN:

* $72,000,000: The live gate, nearly four times more than the previous record in Nevada.

* $350,000: The current price per ticket on the secondary market for ringside seats, which have a face value of $10,000.

* $99.95: The cost of the high-definition pay-per-view, which could generate in the neighborhood of $300,000,000.

* $13,200,000: The amount of sponsorship dollars, more than tripling the previous record.

* $10: Admission price to Friday’s weigh-in, which is scaled for 10,000 seats. Revenue will be split among charities picked by Mayweather and Pacquiao, and tickets have been sold on the secondary market at 30 times the original price.

“We are telling people that, if you’re going to watch the fight yourself, to pay $100 is ostentatious consumerism,” said Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum. “But if you’re going invite four other couples, so 10 people watch the fight in your living room and you buy pizza and Tecate beer, it’s cheaper than going to a movie.”

Tecate, incidentally, spent a record $5.6 million to be the event’s flagship sponsor.

As the upper crust enjoys the action at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, most average Americans will watch at home or in bars at $25 a head. Regardless of where people take in the fight, and they’re expected to in droves, as Mayweather and Pacquiao square off in the ring, money will not mean a thing. Heart and guts and skill will be paramount then, which is the reason to watch in the first place.

“Winning is the first thought and that’s what we have to do,” said Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach. “All the money in the world is no good if you lose.”

In terms of dollars being generated, there’s no question Mayweather and Pacquiao have combined forces for the biggest take in boxing history; and if this is the prism through which to view the fight, there’s no question it’s the biggest event in boxing history.

For Mayweather this is how it is supposed to be. The prodigal son of a boxing family envisioned his career exploding when he and Arum parted ways in 2006. By Arum’s own admission, the man who promoted the complex Muhammad Ali could not grasp Mayweather. The Las Vegas-based boxer suggested the aged, white, attorney was simply too urban, so different that he could not wrap his head around their relationship. Their failure to connect meant Arum, 83, wouldn’t be on board the money train when Mayweather, 38, realized his dream of becoming the first boxer to score a nine-figure payday.

“I always believed I could do record-breaking numbers,” Mayweather said, “I just needed the right team with me.”

The “Money” Team.

For Pacquiao, who has been with Arum from the start, this is simply how it turned out to be. Despite knowing nothing about boxing, he happily made $2 in his first amateur contest in the Philippines at the age of 12, returning to his mother’s modest kitchen with rice and food. Pacquiao, 36, learned about boxing and supporting people he loved and the wider world by watching VHS tapes of the greats with his uncle, not from having an uncle capable of training him to be champion.

Mayweather infamously said charity interests him when he benefits. Pacquiao does not see it this way and has given plenty -- almost too much, according to some people close to him -- to the Filipino people.

“I’m not saying money is evil, but money is the root of all evil,” Pacquiao said. “It depends on how you handle it. For me, I hope that [Mayweather] will help also. I don’t want to judge him or criticize him. I don’t want to say bad things about him, about his money. Of course, he deserves that money. He earned that. He worked hard for that money. I’m just hoping and praying that he will also help poor people.”

Both fighters and their camps claim sound investments secured their financial futures. The enormous rewards reaped from May 2 should only add to their nut while the world pauses and watches like it did when boxing was far more important a cultural cudgel than it is today. These strains of thought aren’t new. When Ray Leonard fought Marvin Hagler in Las Vegas in 1987, it was the yuppie against the blue-collar guy. However, like most things related to Mayweather-Pacquiao, they have been supersized.

“That’s part of the cultural difference in the fight,” Arum said. “There are people who make enormous money and delight in buying toys and yachts and mansions, second and third homes, cars. That’s how they want to live their life, and I’m not going to criticize them. There are others who make enormous amounts of money and think first of doing good and donating money to charities. That’s the two cultural elements that we have, not only in this fight but in society in general, not only in this country but all over the world.”