The biggest boxing fight of the century is all set to take place this Saturday night, as Floyd "Money" Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao battle it out for glory before settling into a nice, cushy life of retirement sitting on a hoard of cash.
Win or lose, the yet undefeatable Mayweather will receive 60 percent of final revenue, a figure that is pegged to be $180 million.
Pacquiao himself didn't get a bad deal at all. His 40 percent share, as stipulated in the contract five years in the making, will still have him bringing home $120 million. That is still $20 million more than the $100 million a major league baseball team usually receives every year. It's also a far cry from the $2 the legendary Filipino boxer made after each match when he was growing up in the Philippines. Kenny Bayless, widely considered the world's best referee, will take home $10,000 to take charge of the half-hour fight.
Their earnings come from a variety of sources, including ticket sales, pay-per-view revenue, and TV broadcast rights.
To get in on the action live and inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena alone will cost anywhere from $1,500 all the way through $10,000 for ringside seats. Not that it matters, since all 15,000 seats at the arena are sold out.
Pacquiao himself spent $3 million to $4 million to seat his massive entourage of 900. Total expected revenue from tickets is $74 million.
Most of the seats were taken by sponsors, but 500 tickets were released to the public, which snapped up every single one of them within the first 60 seconds of sale. Still, there's hope for the most die-hard boxing fans, as ESPN reports an associate of one of the fighters was selling a ringside ticket for $350,000.
On StubHub, second-hand tickets are also selling like hotcakes, but not for the price of them. The cheapest ticket one can get is priced at $3,837, and the average price is $6,547. The most expensive ticket sold on the secondary ticketing site is $351,000, proving that fans aren't holding back from watching the century's biggest fight.
Sponsors are not scrimping either. Revenue from sponsorships soared to $13.2 million, with Mexican beer Tecate paying $5.6 million, easily surpassing the $4 million that was previously the biggest sponsorship revenue in a boxing match. Pacquiao has also made $2.25 million from sponsors who want their brands' logo sewn into the Pacman's boxing shorts.
Another $10 per person will also be charged for the weigh-in, which is decreed a free event by Nevada law. However, to control the hordes of fans expected to watch the event, officials thought it best to put a $10 price tag and donate the proceeds to charity.
Of course, all the hype surrounding MayPac is phenomenal for business in Las Vegas. Five-star hotels have their prices hiked up by an average of $700 for May 1 and May 2, while two-star hotels increased by $200 on average. On online booking website Vegas.com, bookings for the fight weekend increased by nearly 1,000 percent. When word went out the fight was going to be this Sunday, the site saw bookings spike up to 568 hotel rooms for the weekend, compared to the 52 bookings two days before the fight's announcement.
At home, people are expected to shell out up to $300 million or $100 per person to watch the fight in high-definition pay-per-view over HBO or Showtime, rival networks that, in a rare show of agreement, are co-producing and co-distributing the event. Standard-definition costs $90. Three million and forty-eight thousand viewers are expected to pay to watch the match, although with some allowance for people who prefer to watch the fight via illegal streaming sites. Bars are also cashing in, charging an average entry price for people who want to watch the fight of anywhere between $20 and $25.
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