With ticket sales "sluggish," the Mike Tyson-Frans
Botha fight is facing a local PPV blackout in Las Vegas,
according to Royce Feour of the LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL.
The fight will be held at the MGM Grand on Saturday.
America Presents VP Fred Sternberg: "The blackout is still
in place. We are not going to address it until every last
ticket is sold." An MGM spokesperson "would not reveal" the
number of tickets sold, but sales are "expected to improve
this week" (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 1/10). In N.Y.,
Michael Katz reports that "promoters are hoping" for 12,000
at the 16,325-seat MGM Grand Arena. Promoters also "hope"
there will be one million PPV buys. Tyson's last fight drew
1.9 million buyers (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 1/12).
PROMOTIONAL EFFORT: MULTICHANNEL NEWS' R. Thomas
Umstead writes that the fight will have "about" $25M worth
of "promotional noise." A-B's Budweiser is contributing
"about $400,000 in media" to the fight and cable operators
are "kicking in an unprecedented amount of local-market
promotional dollars" (MULTICHANNEL NEWS, 1/11 issue).
