25.9.09

Mayweather-Marquez Tops 1 Million PPV Buys

The numbers are in for the Floyd Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez pay-per-view. And those numbers are good.

Multiple mainstream media outlets are reporting that the Mayweather-Marquez did over 1 million PPV buys. The card took in $52 million as a result, making it the leader in the clubhouse thus far for 2009.

It's a truly astonishing number for several reasons:

  • It was up against UFC 103: Don't forget how much the media made of this fact. I'm not sure what numbers UFC did, but it's safe to say they didn't top 1 million buys. Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports claims industry sources say the boxing card won by a two-to-one margin. It's not apples to apples, as the UFC card was pretty weak compared to some of its other offerings of the past year or so. But it's still interesting, to say the least.
  • Floyd and JMM don't have long histories as top PPV draws: Sure, Floyd was involved with the biggest PPV event of all time, but he was up against arguably the top draw of all time, Oscar De La Hoya. Marquez has fought Manny Pacquiao and not come close to this number.
  • Ticket sales didn't set the world on fire: Guess we'll never know how slow sales were for the original summer date, but reports were that they weren't good. And the announcers were still touting available tickets during the weigh-in. Yet plenty of people shelled out money to watch on TV.
  • The economy is still in the crapper: You know, just in case you forgot.


If Floyd's retirement was an "absence makes the heart grow fonder" gambit, it's safe to say it worked. Assuming the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight that fans everywhere are dreaming about eventually gets to the negotiating table, Team Mayweather's position in any proposed split just got quite a bit stronger too.

Posted by The Franchise

2 comments:

Paul said...

Boxing is just like the WWF, made-up. I saw the fight, yes he won by decision, a cream would have been a clear knockout, did not happen. Floyd Mayweather maybe the best boxer of all time to beat up on washed up fighters. So Floyd Mayweather, did not make the weight for the fight, so he heavier than the weight class that he is fighting in, and his opponent was older, shorter and weigh less. Are we impressed that he won, what a charade. Had we seen him come back and defeat Pacman, Cotto, Mosley or Margarito, then maybe he would deserve our attention, till then, snore, snore. Now we find out that this piece of work owes our government millions of dollars. Why should we believe this guy? I guess the rumors are true that he did everything to avoid fighting Antonio Margarito, before his unexpected first retirement, chicken.

Anonymous said...

People vote with their wallets and they voted to buy the ppv in huge numbers. Whoever he fights next, people will buy that too.