Saturday's Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight is "expected to shatter all revenue records in boxing history, including for most money generated by sponsors," according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. Top Rank President Todd duBoef on Friday said that their contracts "with five title sponsors" will add a record $13.2M to the bottom line of the bout. Rafael noted the fight is "expected to generate" $400M, with the "vast majority of that money coming from the domestic pay-per-view revenue." Exact records "have not been kept, but the previous sponsorship record is believed to be" the estimated $3.5M-$4M brought in by some past Mayweather bouts. Top Rank Exec VP Lucia McKelvey said, "We killed it, we blew it out of the water." Rafael noted of all the fight's sponsors, "the big one" is the $5.6M deal with Tecate as the official beer of the bout. Tecate's bid beat the $5.2M bid "from Corona, the beer company that has sponsored Mayweather's recent fights." The Tecate logo will be "prominently featured on the center of the ring mat and adorn fight signage and posters, and the beer will be sold at the arena on fight night." Meanwhile, Paramount Pictures/Skydance Productions is "promoting two movies: 'Terminator Genisys,' a follow-up on the 'Terminator' movie series that opens July 1, and 'Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation,'" which opens July 31. Also sponsoring the fight are the Mexico Tourism Board "with its 'Mexico, Live it to Believe it' campaign," and Philippines-based Smart Communications, which has "long sponsored Pacquiao's fights" (ESPN, 4/26).
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Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight Sponsors
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| Tecate |
| Weinstein Company |
| Paramount Pictures/Skydance Productions |
| Mexico Tourism Board |
| Smart Communications |
GREED IS GOOD? ESPN’s Teddy Atlas said that fans are "seeing a lot" of greed around the fight in regards to the lack of public tickets put on sale. He said, "You’re seeing the biggest fight maybe of all time as far as money goes and they didn't release the tickets until a week before the fight. Why? So they could drive the price even more. It’s not enough that they were making millions of dollars in all the other avenues of income?" Atlas: "The most important thing here is that, yes, it has to be a good fight to make this all worthwhile. The public is talking about boxing. It’s relevant again, it’s very important it’s a good fight. But if it’s not a good fight, nobody has been talking about that part of it, that aspect. If it’s not a good fight, oh my God there’s going to be a price to pay in boxing for future pay-per-views. The public is going to say, ‘You fooled me once, you fooled me twice, you fooled me three times, you fooled me 10 times, I'm done’” (
“Mike & Mike,” ESPN Radio, 4/27).
