VIA: While Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather may have been a dud in the ring, it was clear to everybody that it was a huge hit at the box office. Now it appears that the fight will surpass even the most optimistic expectations, pushing its way close to a staggering 6 million pay-per-view buys.
According to Kevin Iole at Yahoo Sports, the numbers from satellite companies and telephone companies are 2.25 million buys. That number alone would make Mayweather-Pacquiao the second highest selling pay-per-view fight of all time.
And all of that is without taking into account the buy rates from cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner, which Iole says typically represents between 55 and 65 percent of the total number of sales. Projecting that total, even modestly, would push the fight into astronomical numbers.
DirecTV sold 1.15 million pay-per-views, while Dish’s number was 500,000. The telephone companies combined for 600,000. Combined, that is 2.25 million already. If cable systems wound up being 60 percent of the total, that would mean the final figure is a mind-boggling 5.625 million.
Floyd, of course, was a part of the two highest selling PPV fights of all time. His bout with Oscar De Le Hoya in 2007 is the current, soon-to-be-surpassed benchmark with 2.48 million PPV buys, and his 2013 fight with Canelo Alvarez is currently second with 2.25 million buys. If the numbers even modestly hold, Mayweather vs. Pacquiao would be more than those combined.
Many believed the fight would bring in 3-3.5 million buys, creating a $300+ million pot for the fighters to split 60/40. Now it could reach up to $600 million, and that $100 million check that Floyd was showing off to reporters after the fight could be just a fraction of what he brings in on the back end.
With numbers like that, Floyd might have to go back on his word and give Manny that rematch after all. Even if he doesn’t want to.
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