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FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR has fought his final bout, easily beating Andre Berto in a snoozefest, and, according to the early Pay-Per-View (PPV) estimates, nobody cared.
One source told Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports that there were only 400,000 PPV sales. Another source put the number in the 500,000 to 550,000 range.
Either way, that’s awful.
That’s the lowest PPV sales total for a Mayweather fight since he faced Carlos Baldomir in 2006, a fight that generated just 325,000 PPV sales.
For comparison, Mayweather’s previous fight against Manny Pacquiao drew 4.6 million PPV sales. That fight generated $410 million to $460 million in PPV revenue alone, with a $90 (standard definition) and $100 (high-definition) price tag.
The fight against Berto was priced at $65 (SD) and $75 (HD), which translates to PPV revenue of just $30 million to $40 million.
While nobody was expecting a repeat of the May-Pac numbers, the numbers for Mayweather-Berto are still a big problem for everybody involved. Well, they’re a problem for everybody except for Mayweather, of course.
Mayweather was guaranteed a minimum of $32 million for this fight. That’s a huge pay cut from the fight against Pacquiao, where his final share was in the neighborhood of $210 million. But that also means the biggest source of revenue for the fight, the PPV sales, will almost all go to cover Mayweather’s guaranteed purse. Berto will take home $4 million.
There is a real possibility that Showtime actually lost money on this fight, which is just going to add to the pressure for a Mayweather-Pacquiao rematch.
Meanwhile, $32 million is nothing to scoff at. But in a sport driven by big egos, it will be interesting to see if Mayweather will be able to truly walk away when his last fight was such a dud.
