LAS VEGAS — It’s hardly a secret that Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao are going to sell a lot of pay-per-views on Saturday when they meet at the MGM Grand Garden for the WBA-WBC-WBO welterweight title in what is expected to be the largest grossing fight in boxing history.
Their full pay-per-view history, though, shows the extent of their popularity.
Mayweather, who turned pro in 1996 after winning a bronze medal in the Atlanta Olympic Games, began fighting on pay-per-view in 2005. In all, he’s fought 13 times (nine times on HBO Pay-Per-View and four times on Showtime PPV) on pay-per-view and generated 14.5 million sales and $873 million in gross revenue.
Pacquiao made his pay-per-view debut in 2006, fighting twice on smaller Top Rank PPV cards before graduating to the big-time. In all, Pacquiao has made 20 PPV appearances (one on Showtime, two on Top Rank and 17 on HBO). He’s sold 13.4 million units and generated $741 million in gross revenue.
Combined, they’s sold 28 million pay-per-views and generated $1.6 billion in revenue. Mayweather has averaged 1.12 million sales per fight, with a record high of 2.48 million for his May 5, 2007, bout with Oscar De La Hoya. Pacquiao has averaged 728,000 and surpassed 1 million sales in fights against De La Hoya (1.25 million); Miguel Cotto (1.2 million); Antonio Margarito (1.15 million); Shane Mosley (1.2 million) and in his third fight against Juan Manuel Marquez (1.25 million). His fourth bout with Marquez finished at 990,000.
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SportsInteraction.com’s odds on the Mayweather-Pacquiao pay-per-view. (Screenshot from SportsInteraction.com) As incredible as those numbers are, it’s nothing next to what is expected. Several online sports books are taking bets on the total pay-per-view sales. SportsInteraction.com has the over-under at 3.8 million, with over at minus-167 and under at plus-120.
The fight is already trending well ahead of the pace that Mayweather’s 2013 bout with Canelo Alvarez was. That fight sold 2.2 million pay-per-views, which is second all-time, and set a record with $153 million in PPV revenue.
The bout last week was ahead of the pace that the Mayweather-Alvarez fight was on Wednesday of fight week. It’s impossible to know if that will hold up, but it’s a sign to expect a very robust number.
Speaking of robust, HBO has put on 187 pay-per-view events. They’ve sold 59.3 million units that have generated $3.1 billion in revenue.
That figure is going to go way up on Saturday.
