The “Boys,” “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather, and “The Golden Boy,” Oscar De La Hoya, are finally about to meet on May 5 after months of anticipation, hype, media speculation, non-stop publicity, and more hype. In late January the remaining 5,400 seats not held by the promoters or casinos for the fight to be held at the 16,000 MGM Grand Garden Arena went on sale and sold out in less than three hours. Almost 11,000 seats were held back for the promoters and the casinos.
The sale of the tickets, priced at $2,000,$1,500, $1,000, $750, limited to six per person, and $350 and $150, limited to two per person, were enough to set a North American live gate record of over $19 million. Add to that a possible two million pay per view buys at $54.95 a pop, foreign distribution, venue gate, sponsors and the sale of merchandise and you’re looking at staggering revenue generated by this fight.
De La Hoya-Mayweather, promoted by Golden Boy Promotions, will be further enriched by the participation of sponsors such as, Tecate Beer, Rockstar Energy Drink, Southwest Airlines, and Tequila Cazadores. If Golden Boy grossed $175 million last year while setting a promotional record of 2.2 million PPV buys, it’s not difficult to imagine that kind of income pouring in on this one night from all sources. HBO PPV is making the fight available to a record 61 million viewers.
That should take the sting out of some recent disappointments such as Shane Mosley drawing 6,000 to fight Luis Collazo, Israel Vazquez pulling in just 5,500 to fight a great matchup with Rafael Marquez, and Marco Antonio Barrera drawing 8,000 to fight a long overdue matchup with Juan Manuel Marquez. Barrera-Marquez also recorded tepid PPV sales of 225,000, and just $10.1 million in television revenue, much less than a fight of that magnitude deserved.
I’m one of that group of cynics that feel that GBP, and perhaps U.S. boxing as a whole, had basically put up the “Gone Fishing” sign in the past few months to maximize the promotion of DLH -PBF where the real money is. The media may have been just as culpable. Properly promoted and publicized, these fights should have been box office winners.
Some time ago I wrote that if there was ever a boxing event in recent times that was worthy of being held in an outdoor venue, this was the one. It’s easy to imagine this fight, as much spectacle as sporting event, dwarfing the Joe Calzaghe-Peter Manfredo Jr. mismatch in Wales by a considerable margin. To put a mere 5,400 seats on sale for the closest thing that we have had to a “Superfight” in a generation is questionable at best. I’m finding it extremely difficult to accept that the brain power involved in making this fight didn’t know what they were doing all along.
By February 20, the MGM-Mirage group began selling another 20,000 seats – for a showing of the closed circuit show at their properties at the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, Treasure Island, Luxor, Monte Carlo, and Circus Circus – for $50 plus handling fees.
Here is the basis of my concern: Of the 11,000 seats held back and the 5.400 put up for public sale, if in fact that was the correct number, an astounding amount are finding their way to brokers and ticket resellers. As of Monday, 738 tickets were available on www.TicketsNow.com. Last week Tickets Now issued a press release stating that the ticket demand for the event was “turning into an event on a par with the Super Bowl in terms of ticket pricing and availability.“ The release further read that “prices were expected to escalate as the event draws nearer.” At the time of our search, tickets were selling for as high as $22,425 on that site, with a minimum price of $1105.
A list of premier events by Tickets Now showed the fight as being only second to the 2007 Super Bowl in the average prices of tickets, ahead of The Kentucky Derby, (also on May 5), the 2006 World Series, the 2006 NBA Finals, The Barbra Streisand concert, and the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals.
Even closed circuit tickets were going from $105 to view it at Mandalay Bay to $455 for an MGM showing.
Jennifer Swanson, media spokesperson for Tickets Now emphasized that they do not buy tickets from individuals, but serve as a database of secondary event tickets. More than 90% of the professional ticket agencies that list, buy, and sell event tickets utilize software developed by Tickets Now. Ms. Swanson conceded that there were tickets available that are not listed on Tickets Now, however.
Danny Matta, the president of Great Seats, a large ticket broker, said that the tickets in his database were from both “brokers and individuals, but mostly brokers.” Matta says that he doesn’t get tickets from performers or athletes.
Stubhub.com posts on their site that they obtain their tickets from ticket holders who:
1) Have changed their plans
2) Are unable to attend
3) Have extra tickets
So that’s the big question – who has extra tickets?
Tickets are also available on Ebay, and Craig’s List, classified ads, and probably other more individual sources. It is unknown how many tickets have already been sold to this point. Swanson declined to give out that information that her competitors would love to have. With tickets apparently out there in such great supply and from so many different sources, it’s impossible to even guess. But it appears as if at least 10-20% and maybe even more of the tickets have found their way to brokers and resellers to be sold at premium prices so far. And, there are more tickets available today than there were on Friday.
Certainly it’s no coincidence that the closed circuit locations are MGM-Mirage properties. MGM wants the high rollers to step out of the arena to the casino in their venues. As distasteful as it may seem, it should be remembered that casinos are not in the business of philanthropy. I understand that they would want to give those prime seats to their best “customers” who can go through the price of a ticket in one spin of a wheel. I can even see tickets going to the big spenders from the other casino groups. It’s a pain to wait for your Limo so why not shoot some craps while things clear out?
It’s possible that some of the tickets have been sold by the public ticket buyers, speculators who want to turn their investment of $2000 per ticket into a Buick, but it seems unlikely that by sheer numbers that they would represent the majority.
Boxing fans are notorious for buying tickets at the last minute, so it should be interesting to watch the flow of tickets available on the internet as we count down the days to May 5. Danny Matta of Great Seats said that for most events tickets are reserved for guests of the performers or athletes. Often, around the day of the event those tickets are released to Ticketmaster where he and other brokers pick them up.
A Golden Boy spokesperson said that they could help the media with fighter stories or questions, but they had no knowledge of the tickets or their resale. The MGM-Mirage public relations department did not return calls.
So – how did so many tickets wind up online reselling at premium prices?
Regardless of whether tickets are being given away to the high-rollers, sold by members of the Golden Boy or Mayweather camps, by private investors who resold to brokers, or to sponsors who were granted tickets as part of the courtship for their participation, one fact remains clear. This is a fight to be seen live not by the masses, but by the privileged.