The need for Showtime and HBO to work together left some wondering if a Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight would ever come to fruition.
Now the two networks likely will shatter boxing box office records together.
Mayweather-Pacquiao was officially announced Friday night, set for May 2 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It’s a fight that’s been more than five years in the making, and one that hasn’t been easy to finalize for a variety of reasons.
“Everybody compromised at the right time,” HBO Sports president Ken Hershman said. “It’s really a credit to Floyd and to Manny that they pushed their respective teams and networks.
“Everyone was working really hard and in good faith to get everything done. There was no holdup on one end or the other. Everybody was truly motivated to make concessions. That’s a sign of a fair deal.”
HBO and Showtime will collaborate on a joint pay-per-view for the first time since Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson in 2002. For Mayweather, this will be his fifth bout with Showtime as part of six-fight deal. Pacquiao is with HBO.
mayweather-showtime.JPG Floyd Mayweather has two fights left on his Showtime contract. Josh Slagter | MLive.com Price for the PPV has not been set, and will be announced within the coming weeks, along with an “all-star team” of broadcast talent from both networks. Details for behind-the-scenes shows — HBO has “24/7” and Showtime airs “All Access” — also have not been set. “(Lewis-Tyson) was a real good road map of all of us, it showed this could be done successfully,” Hershman said. “There’s a lot of mechanics that go into this when two networks are working together.”
Mayweather-Pacquiao is expected to to be the biggest grossing fight of all time.
Mayweather’s September 2012 win over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did more than $150 million in revenue with 2.2 million pay-per-view buys. Mayweather’s victory over Oscar De La Hoya still holds the PPV record for buys, at 2.45 million.
“Each side bore some of the pain of making the deal,” said Stephen Espinoza, Showtime Sports’ executive vice president and general manager. “Everybody made compromises, that’s why we got it done.”
Added Hershman: “I prefer to leave the negations behind us. We got the deal done, which is the important thing. Our focus from here forward is how do we make this into the biggest event of all time.”
