The fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz last month was supposed to have brought in huge numbers on pay per view, according to their promoter Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions.
[WATCH: Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs Victor Ortiz video]
Schaefer predicted the fight would bring in between 1.4 million to 1.7 million PPV buys. However, Steve Kim is reporting that the Mayweather-Ortiz fight brought in only 850,000 PPV buys, which is rather sad given the popularity of Mayweather and all the hype and marketing that went into the Mayweather-Ortiz fight. HBO put together one of their 24/7 series for this fight, and it was advertised constantly on cable. If 850,000 is the best it brought in with all that marketing than it is truly sad.
[WATCH: HBO 24/7 Mayweather vs Ortiz episodes]
Kim said this on his twitter: “I’ve heard as low as 850,000. Still no PPV figures released for the Mayweather-Ortiz yet, which is very telling.”
This isn’t good, is it? If all Mayweather vs. Ortiz brought in was a paltry 850,000 for this fight, it’s going to put Mayweather in a bad bargaining position with Manny Pacquiao, if he ever decides to fight him. With the exception of his fight against Joshua Clottey last year, which brought in only 700,000 PPV buys, Pacquiao has been selling over 1 million PPV buys for each of his fights since then.
It will be hard for Mayweather to ask for equal footing in the bargaining table if he’s bringing in low figures like that against a fighter as well known as Ortiz is with the casual boxing fans. It could be the economy in addition to the high price of the Mayweather-Ortiz card scared away a lot of boxing fans from buying the fight. Or it could be they just saw it as a hopeless mismatch and figured Ortiz didn’t have a chance and why pay to see a mismatch?
SOURCE: Boxing News 24 (Mayweather-Ortiz only 850,000 PPV buys? by Dan Ambrose)
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