THE PAQUIAO/HATTON FIGHT DID HUGE NUMBERS ON INTERNATIONAL PAY-PER-VIEW
Boxing promoter Bob Arum has spent nearly two full weeks trying to hide the final pay-per-view numbers from the May 2nd Manny Pacquiao versus Ricky Hatton fight. Yesterday, Dan Rafael of ESPN.com finally came up with a figure. According to Rafael, the fight sold about 850,000 ppv buys in the U.S.
That number is far from the two million buys that some people were predicting. However, as Rafael points out, it’s certainly no failure. Rafael notes those figures make Pacquiao/Hatton the second-most watched fight in history that didn’t involve either Mike Tyson or Oscar De La Hoya. Only the December 2007 Floyd Mayweather/Hatton fight had more viewes with 915,000.That’s $50 million in sales and those numbers don’t even include Hatton’s native Great Britain, which may have totalled another million pay-per-view buys.
Also, the live gate at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas took in another $8,832,950. There is also closed-circuit money (over $575,000 just in Las Vegas), sponsorship dollars, international tv and pay-per-view money (don’t forget that Pacquiao is from the Philippines), and merchandising. All told, that’s at least $100 million. Maybe $200 million.
Not bad for a fight that Bob Arum is too embarrassed to release the numbers on.
Tags: Dan Rafael, ESPN, Manny Pacquiao, Ricky Hatton
The Sports Pig's Blog 
May 15, 2009 at 5:05 pm |
So let me get this straight. The fight did $100 million or possibly $200 million. When you can narrow that down get back to us.