Less than 6 weeks until the two biggest names in boxing face off from one another in the ring from a familiar location for both men at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. This IS the biggest bout boxing has to offer fans across the country and the world and yet both fighters and their teams have failed to put any effort into promotion, fan engagement of selling of the fight.
Why? Well, because the fight will sell itself. There is no need to do a tour around the country to sell this fight, the names alone are generating enough buzz that neither fighter has to engage with the public.
It really is sad to see that these two fighters who talk that this is the fight the fans want to see so they’re giving it to them, yet that is all they’re doing. They had one press conference that only a select few were allowed to attend, very few fights fans for either guy; just media and one another’s camp were in the LA building two weeks ago. Yet the anticipation for the bout continues to rise with excitement. Every publication has a story to write, from Mayweather’s team paying off sparring partners to not work with
Pacquiao, to fighters getting beat up by Mayweather to Tim Tebow stopping to see Pacquiao in training and it will only continue to get bigger as the fight nears.
Yet as of this moment, no ticket announcement has been made as to when the tickets will go on sale. With prices starting at $1,500 and going up from there, it will be interesting to see how many real fight fans will actually be able to get tickets to the fight. On third party sites, prices for tickets are already going for $8,000 dollars if not more and with no actual announcement, it once again feels as though this fight and who may or may not be able to go is contingent upon Mayweather and his team dictating the rules. Not to mentions rooms at the MGM and most near MGM are near a grand for fight night alone. Perhaps Mayweather knows that there may be more Pacquiao fans in attendance and he is limiting the ability for them to be able to make travel arrangements to Las Vegas or trying to freeze them out of getting tickets all together.
Maybe they are trying to limit the amount of backlash they will endure regardless of the ticket announcement simply because they know most if not all of the tickets are already sold to brokers and other outlets for a much higher price. Perhaps they just don’t care about the actual fans to invest any amount of effort into knowing they will shell out their hard earned money regardless of the attention paid to them. It’s not hard to imagine that the fighters know they’re going to get PAID and paid handsomely. They know that the suggested PPV HD price somewhere near $100.00 dollars that this fight is a huge moneymaker. Which is why it makes sense that they are limiting the amount of publicity they have done. That takes away money they could be making. Mayweather knows that boxing is a business and he is treating this fight as his biggest business venture yet. Mayweather and his team are squeezing every last penny they can from this fight. Even the fight poster is rather pedestrian. For this fight being the biggest event in boxing, they’re making it rather ho-hum so far.
While neither man is obligated to entertain the masses other than on May 2nd, it would have been nice to actually see these two guys realize that without the fans over the past decade of watching and going to their fights, buying their merchandise, that there is no way they could stand where they are today and make the millions of dollars that have, but this feels like a big middle finger to the fight fans.
Then again, boxing is an individual sport to being with.