In an interview with David Mayo of the the Grand Rapids Press, Floyd Mayweather’s advisor Leonard Ellerbe stated, ?Manny Pacquiao is probably wondering how did Floyd Mayweather make $40 million, and I?m making whatever it was he made for his fight!? Then Ellerbe added, ?Floyd Mayweather has definitely made more money in his last two fights than that guy has made in his whole career.?
Now there?s no denying that Mayweather is crossover star and that he now has the magic touch at the box office, but Ellerbe?s comment that Floyd will make 40 million dollars seems way off base. First of all, 1.4 million buys, which is the current projection circulatiing around the industry, is a phenomenal buy rate and makes Mayweather-Mosley one of the top six selling pay per view events in history, but it still falls short of the three million and then four million buys that Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer predicted and falls way short of eclipsing the all time mark of 2.15 million buys set by De La Hoya and Mayweather in May of 2007.
According to the report by Mayo, the fight is projected to generated 71 million in pay per view revenue and 11.1 million dollars at the gate.As a result Ellerbe?s statement that Floyd will make 40 million dollars for the fight seems to be an unrealistic figure. First off, cable and satellite providers usually take fifty percent of the pay per view profits right off the top so that leaves around 35 millions dollars on the table. Throw in the eleven or twelve million in the pot from the gate and that leaves around 47 million, but Mosley was guaranteed at least seven million in addition to a percentage of the pay per view. So if you estimate his purse at 10 million, that leaves 37 million, but Golden Boy Promotions promoted the bout spent millions on advertising and logistics and as promoters are going to take a significant portion of the profits so Ellerbe?s claim that Mayweather is going to earn 40 million dollars from the fight seems way off base. Thirty million seems like a more realistic figure.
