The pay per view buy rate for Floyd Mayweather vs. Shane Mosley was thought to be the one of the biggest of Mayweather’s career.
There was talk of all kinds of numbers being achieved through the fact that many saw Mosley as a real threat to Mayweather’s unbeaten run and the fact that both were American and well known.
Yahoo boxing correspondent Kevin Iole however has been informed that the early numbers aren’t quite so promising. A buy rate of around 1.2 million is now being floated around, which is good but nothing to write home about for the man who calls himself boxing’s biggest draw.
If the numbers are true, then this is a good thing and a bad thing for the sport as a whole. Firstly, it isn’t a good thing when any boxing card doesn’t sell as well as it was predicted to. When cards sell well it’s better for the sport as a whole simply because more money is generated and more cards are put together. Not to mention more publicity is given to both the sport and the fighters.
On the other hand though, for Manny Pacquiao and his supporters, the news that Mayweather didn’t sell as well as he was predicted to is a good thing. It dispels the notion that Mayweather is definitely the biggest seller in the sport, and takes away some of his bargaining power at the negotiating table.
Most of the time in boxing, the fighter who’s bringing the most money to the table is the one who can dictate terms to the other. Mayweather did it against Mosley and Pacquiao did it against Clottey. Against each other they were fairly evenly matched, and the resulting battle of wills ended up stopping the fight. Had he achieved huge numbers against Mosley, Mayweather would have been in a more powerful position to demand the terms should he and Pacquiao negotiate again.
Richard Shaefer’s predictions of 4 million buys were obviously way off the mark, but many expected that the fight could sell in the region of 2 million buys, perhaps getting close to the all time record set by Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya. as it turns out though, neither Mayweather or Mosley sold as well as they expected.
Suddenly the idea of making $20-$30 million each fight against anyone he cares to fight isn’t so realistic for Mayweather. It also makes a fight against Manny Pacquiao more likely since both remain similar in terms of drawing power.
Lee Martin, Pittsburgh: “How would Pacquiao compare against Mosley?”
I think its reasonable to assume that he could have sold the same amount against Mosley given the same build up. Would Mayweather have been able to sell the same amount against Clottey? Probably not I wouldn’t have thought. Mayweather sells when his opponents are perceived as threats. Pacquiao sells either way because the fight will be exciting whatever happens.
Jake Frye, Pittsburgh: “Does this make the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight more likely to happen?”
It might do, although the real barrier is still the drug testing stances of either fighter. Mayweather will be taken aback by this news though if the figures don’t greatly improve, and his talk of not accepting any cut off might disappear. I think he was believing his own hype and thought this would sell a lot better than it appears to have.
