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Philippines, 08 May 2024 |
Home >> News >> Columns >> Mortz Marcelo Ortigoza |  |
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Woe to those Poor Pacman Fans PhilBoxing.com Sat, 01 Apr 2006 The stiff priced tickets peddled by Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao - ABS/CBN business partnership on the July 2, 2006 boxing match between Pacman and Oscar “Chololo” Larios” will have a psychological backlash to the popularity of the duo based on their business collaboration. Another bitter learning experience to the inherently emotional and acrimonious bakya (street) crowd that composed the bulk of the country’s downtrodden. The icon they perceive hailed from their ranks cannot accommodate them with a price-tag they can ill afford. A fight to be held in their own backyard in the Philippines with no live feed to the local TV or cable network and no live feed even to AM band radio probably this time. Their P325 or $6.4 government mandated minimum wage a day could not bring them to watch in the flesh their idol. This is not politics where political leadership ingratiate to the unwashed of society to get their favor. This is pure and simple business the Lopez family (who owned the biggest TV and radio network in the country) darn well know to give them the profit they badly wanted up to the last drop of blood from the willing spectators. Last year, they just lost 62% or P463 Million revenue on their expensive rating war with rival TV network GMA-7. Of course, we can’t blame them. This is what commerce is all about. With prices vary from P 51,000 ($1000) for the “royalty” seats, P 25,000 to the other ringside seats, and the P1,000 at the rafters for the majority of the paying public, these TV business wizards knew that there will be an upsurge of the crowd who will queue and will fill-up the 17,000-seater Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. A matter of the law of supply and demand for fanatics out there. They, who woke up one day to see there is a Pacquiao who can massage their ego before the world. Ego or pride that was not given to them by their political and economic leadership since time immemorial. ABS-CBN, particularly, knew that it will hit big this time. Thus, it gambles $4 million or P204 million to have the exclusive right not only to bankroll the venue, and the boxers’ purses, but to sell the TV rights –- in partnership with HBO – to a much bigger market in the U.S. If the 17,000 crowd at the Araneta will shell-out say, P20 million, the 5.3 million pay per view TV viewers in the U.S (my liberal estimate from the 1/3 of the 16 million PPV viewers of the Pacman-Morales rematch last January who will still watch despite the less popularity of this bout) will shoulder P13.515 billion (5.3 million viewers multiply by $50 (or P2,550). Notwithstanding the profit it will rake from dozens of SM Cinemas that will show the fight live on celluloid, the Lopez Empire can have their badly needed dose to reinvigorate them at the tune of P13.535 billion. Of course, this inclusive of the cost of production, HBO shares, purses, and taxes. Oh by the way, didn’t you know that the Local Government Code of the Philippines has empowered government units like Quezon City, which is where the Araneta Coliseum is located, can impose a 30-45% tax from the gross receipts of the fight in the name of Amusement Taxes? Gee whiz, tax to big. But that’s the law. Dura Lex Sid Lex! Anyway, that’s where ABS will need bookkeepers and accountants to gather all documents to manipulate, er, vouch for tax exemption to mitigate the said burden. Forget about those figures this mathematical idiot just jumbled awhile ago, lets go the lighter side. Man, I’ll not waste my time driving four hours from Dagupan City to Quezon City on the July’s D-Day to watch this nonsense with a terrible ticket tag. Oscar Larios is no Baby Faced Assassin, El Terrible, Marquez, Chris John, Zaheem Raheem, or Diego Corrales. Imagine this, you elbow yourself penetrating the sea of zealots as you adjust your olfactory attributes just to locate your seat at the Coliseum, and suddenly Pacman unleashes with flurry his left hand bombs (now this time without the mobile phone where he text as fought in one of his many TV advertisements), and everybody is shocked and breathless to see poor Chololo flying and landing hard devastatingly to the canvas knocked out in one of the early rounds. Was that horrifying especially if you paid $1000? Remember the Latin term: Caveat emptor! (Buyer Beware!)? And boy, I’m not yet talkin’ here about that crap called stampede. (Comments at totomortz@yahoo.com, or mobile phone 09192760964) Click here for a complete listing of columns by this author. Click here for a complete listing of this author's articles from different news sources. |
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