HBO has proven just how hard it is trying to make Oscar De La Hoya versus Floyd Mayweather Jr. the greatest grossing non-heavyweight fight in boxing history.
The network announced Friday that it will televise a four-episode reality series from the De La Hoya and Mayweather training camps before their May 5 pay-per-view showdown in Las Vegas.
The series will debut on April 15 in a high-profile time slot. The first three half-hour episodes will premier immediately following original airings of “The Sopranos” and “Entourage,” two of HBO’s biggest hits, on successive Sunday nights (10:30 p.m.) in April. The De La Hoya-Mayweather reality finale will air on May 3 at 9:30 p.m., two days before their 12-round fight for De La Hoya’s World Boxing Council super welterweight title at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
HBO producers will live in the De La Hoya and Mayweather camps to film the show, which the network’s executives expect to appeal to hardcore and casual fight fans alike.
“In 35 years of televising boxing, this is a first for HBO,” said HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg. “De La Hoya versus Mayweather will be the most highly anticipated fight of the year and we are going to provide our subscribers with an all-access series that is sure to be provocative and compelling television.”
What would’ve been the most compelling element to the series probably won’t play out, though.
De La Hoya hasn’t commented publicly, but he has reportedly decided against using Mayweather’s father as his trainer for the heavily hyped fight. Floyd Mayweather Sr., De La Hoya’s trainer since 2001, requested a $2 million salary for preparing De La Hoya to fight his estranged son. De La Hoya wanted to guarantee the elder Mayweather only $500,000 for the unusual, emotional assignment, plus a $500,000 bonus if “The Golden Boy” beats the man generally regarded as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the sport.
Mayweather trained his son throughout his amateur career, and after a temporary imprisonment trained him as a pro from 1998-2000.
Roger Mayweather, Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s uncle and a two-time former champion, has trained him since Mayweather Jr. fired his father, but wasn’t in his corner for Mayweather’s welterweight championship domination of Argentina’s Carlos Baldomir on Nov. 4 in Las Vegas. The Nevada State Athletic Commission suspended Roger Mayweather for a year and fined him $200,000 on April 13 for inciting a near-riot during the 10th round of his nephew’s unanimous decision victory over Zab Judah five days earlier at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center. Roger Mayweather has since begun serving a six-month sentence in a Nevada prison on an assault conviction, but will be released in time to train his nephew for the De La Hoya fight.
No matter who trains the East Los Angeles, Calif., native, De La Hoya (38-4, 30 KOs), boxing’s biggest star and an ex-champion in six weight classes, will likely make more than $30 million for meeting Mayweather (37-0, 24 KOs), once their portions of the pay-per-view revenue are divided. Mayweather might make more than $15 million. Regardless, the former four-division champion’s guaranteed $10 million purse already represents career-high earnings for the 29-year-old fighter from Grand Rapids, Mich.
HBO boxing executives think that the company’s ambitious marketing campaign will help De La Hoya-Mayweather establish a new record for a non-heavyweight pay-per-view event. De La Hoya’s maligned majority decision defeat to Puerto Rican legend Felix Trinidad in Las Vegas, which drew 1.4 million buys in September 1999, is the current standard. Wayne’s Mark Taffet, HBO’s senior vice president of operations and pay-per-view, hasn’t made an official announcement, but the network is expected to charge $54.95 for De La Hoya-Mayweather, $5 more than usual for a top pay-per-view fight.
De La Hoya’s last fight, a thorough thrashing of trash-talking Nicaraguan Ricardo Mayorga (28-6-1, 23 KOs) on May 6 in Las Vegas, drew 975,000 buys. That sixth-round technical knockout win marked De La Hoya’s first fight in 19 months, a comeback from his ninth-round knockout defeat to then-middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins (47-4-1, 32 KOs, 1 NC), a bout that drew 1 million buys. The 33-year-old De La Hoya’s 17 pay-per-view appearances since 1995 have accounted for 10,425,000 buys and roughly $490 million in revenue, both records for a non-heavyweight.
The De La Hoya-Mayweather match could also break live gate records in Nevada. The Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield rematch, which generated $16,860,300 in ticket revenue on Nov. 13, 1999, at Thomas & Mack Center, established the current mark.
Roughly 3,000 tickets for the De La Hoya-Mayweather match will go on sale today at 10 a.m. MGM’s Grand Garden Arena will be configured for approximately 16,000 fight fans, but about 13,000 tickets have already been bought by HBO, casinos in Las Vegas, corporate sponsors of the event and the camps of both boxers.
Tickets priced at $2,000, $1,500, $1,000 and $750 will be limited to six per customer. The $350 and $150 seats will be limited to two per person. To purchase tickets, call 702-474-4000, or visit www.mgmgrand.com or www.ticketmaster.com.
