Fight may become Notorious Money pit
Mayweather-McGregor prices hard to take at face value as hotel and ticket sales lag
LAS VEGAS— It’s supposed to be the hottest ticket in sports.
So far, though, fans aren’t exactly storming the box office to buy tickets for boxer Floyd (Money) Mayweather Jr.’s fight next month with Conor McGregor, the UFC champion known as “The Notorious One.”
A check online Saturday revealed hundreds — even thousands — of seats still available from Ticketmaster at the T-Mobile arena for the Aug. 26 fight. There are so many open seats that fans with enough room left on their credit cards can buy six tickets together in 162 different spots throughout the arena.
That might be because of the astronomical prices set by promoters — the cheapest original tickets on Ticketmaster have a face value of $3,500 (U.S.). Or maybe fans are just hoping the price will go down.
Either way, promoter Leonard Ellerbe says the fight will not only sell out, but break records for the richest gate.
“We’re very excited and very happy with ticket sales so far,” Ellerbe told The Associated Press “We’re well on our way to smashing our own record which transcended the sport.”
That record was a $72,198,500 gate set by Mayweather in his 2015 fight with Manny Pacquiao. That live gate was more than three times bigger than any previous boxing gate.
Still, five days after tickets first went on sale, seats throughout the arena are widely available.
Prices start at $3,500 — plus another $300 or so for buyer fees — and climb to $10,000 near the ring. There are “platinum” seats that go for as much as $14,995.
The resale market is nearly as pricey. At Seatgeek.com the get-in price is around $2,000, for one of the few seats that originally sold at $500. The median listing price is about $7,000. There seems to be sticker shock. “There’s fairly little sales going on in general,” said Chris Leyden, a content analyst for SeatGeek.com. “I think a lot of it has to do with where prices are now. I think people are a little uncomfortable paying this much or maybe even more.”
The situation is much the same at StubHub, where demand for tickets is lower than it was at the same time before the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight two years ago.
“We’re not necessarily seeing demand levels for the fight yet,” said Johnna Hoff, a StubHub spokesperson. “The encouraging part is people are buying some tickets.”
AUFC spokesperson did not return calls for comment. Ticketmaster replied to an email by saying it will “decline to comment at this time.”
Any sign of slow ticket sales would undercut the argument by promoters that the fight might be the richest of all time, topping the MayweatherPacquiao bout that grossed some $600 million.
Joris Drayer, a professor of sports business at Temple University in Philadelphia, said high prices are likely limiting the market. The prospect of paying for travel and hotels in Las Vegas might also make the payper-view a more attractive option.
Drayer noted some of the smaller resellers might feel the tickets are too expensive to be flipped for a profit.
“This is the challenge when pricing a one-of-a-kind type of event. No one knows what the demand will be,” Drayer said in an email. “In this case, it seems the promoters overestimated what people would be willing to pay — and how many of those people willing (to) pay thousands would actually attend the event.”
The four-city promotional tour the two fighters went on attracted large crowds, but fans for the most part got in free. Promoters are also expecting huge pay-per-view sales at $99.95 apiece that could rival the 4.6 million sold for Mayweather-Pacquiao.
The demand for the fight is being driven largely by UFC fans, who tend to be younger than boxing fans and may not have pockets quite as deep.
Another sign that demand may be lacking — hotel prices for the weekend of the fight. There are still plenty of rooms available online in the $300 to $400 range.