LAS VEGAS — The economy and pay-per-view boxing collided at the crossroads of Saturday’s Oscar De La Hoya-Manny Pacquiao showdown.
The best live tickets at MGM Grand all have sold, yet good ringside seats easily are available for less than face value.
The pay-per-view king, De La Hoya, is featured against the pound-for-pound king, Pacquiao, yet economic conditions led promoters and sponsors into a partnership whereby those buying the fight can recoup virtually the entire $54.95 price tag through rebates.
Co-promoters Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank Inc. express confidence that the biggest fight this year will fill casinos and lure pay-per-view buyers, as De La Hoya has his entire career.
Yet the same promoters just did the Bernard Hopkins-Kelly Pavlik fight and drew a mere 190,000 buys, a threshold at which the event normally might shift to mainstream HBO.
Top Rank president Bob Arum predicted Saturday’s fight will do 1.5 million buys, which would rank second among all De La Hoya fights. However, that would be far short of the record 2.4 million for last year’s Floyd Mayweather blockbuster, which promoters initially hoped to challenge.
Then, the stock market tanked, which served to spike promoters’ creativity.
Rebate coupons offered
They addressed a pocketbook issue with a pocketbook response. Tecate beer, Cazadores tequila and Full Throttle energy drinks are offering rebate coupons of $10 to $20 to pay-per-view buyers who also buy their products. Anyone who buys the fight and all three products, then fills out and returns all three coupons, will receive checks totaling $50.
Anyone interested in attending the live fight can get great value, too — which happens when no one’s buying.
