Few fans thought The Fight of the Century lived up to expectations. For Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, it surpassed them.
Forbes reports that May’s Mayweather-Pacquiao match grossed $600 million. The figure beats the Super Bowl and in fact any previous one-off sporting event.
“The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will generate $600 million in total once everything is counted from tickets, PPV, sponsorships, merchandise, closed-circuit and international rights,” Kurt Badenhausen writes. “It was a record tally for a one-day sporting event and triple the previous high for a fight. The only thing comparable is the Super Bowl, which produced $500 million in revenue last year and ranks annually as the world’s most valuable sporting event brand.
Pacquiao pockets $125 million before the tax man cometh; Mayweather, about double that. Neither the Filipino nor the American showed any signs upon his face of having been in a fight in the aftermath of the match.
The fight’s gate grabbed more than three-and-a-half times the previous record. Its pay-per-view bounty smashed records, too. It generated 4.4 million domestic buys, nearly 2 million more than the previous high (Mayweather-De La Hoya). And given that Mayweather-Pacquiao priced at $90 for standard ($100 for HD) versus $55 for Mayweather-De La Hoya, the buy rate tells a small part of how May 2’s event smashed the previous top subscription draw.
Pacquiao recovers from shoulder surgery, and expects to return to the ring in the spring. Mayweather vows one more fight before retirement. Neither fighter, even if they accept an encore fight, figures to make anything near the record purses of May’s fight.
Canelo Alvarez, Gennady Golovkin, and Andre Ward all hope to soon grab the baton as the next generation’s pay-per-view champion.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.