Mega-fight could bring in $550m
WE know the date: August 26. We know the location: Las Vegas. We know the broadcaster: Showtime.
That’s the extent of the details that have been made public about this summer’s blockbuster fight between boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr and mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor.
‘‘The deal is done, and now all the business will be handled,’’ said Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. ‘‘But we haven’t really gotten there.’’
Each fight is different, and while various regulatory bodies govern what happens inside the ring, everything outside of it is up for negotiation, and must be agreed upon anew.
‘‘Anything of this magnitude, there are three buckets of issues,’’ said Ken Hershman, former president of HBO Sports. Hershman did not work on this fight, but he did negotiate the May, 2015, meeting between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao and many other fights. ‘‘There are the commercial terms, the logistical terms and then what I call the vanity terms.’’
The logistics of the broadcast team, where everybody will stay and the location of news conferences are relatively easy to negotiate. ‘‘The harder part are the commercial terms and the vanity terms,’’ Hershman said.
‘‘I don’t use vanity in any sort of pejorative way,’’ he added, but rather to describe negotiations over issues like who will enter the arena first, how big the entourages will be and who will appear on the left and right sides of promotional posters. ‘‘There are conventional norms to that if titles are at stake. But if there are not, or it is a unique event, you have to negotiate all of that.’’
But for a fight of this magnitude, the commercial and financial terms are what matter. So how much money are we talking about here?
‘‘If I had to guess, I think this fight could generate somewhere in the neighbourhood of $US400 million [$550m],’’ said Kery Davis, a former senior vice-president at HBO Sports. ‘‘I do believe there is a huge segment of the populace who are combat fans or who are just sports fans, who are going to be interested in seeing this spectacle. There is some element who look to see if McGregor could land that miracle punch and knock out Floyd Mayweather,’’ he added. ‘‘But most people will know what they’re buying when they buy it. They will tune in for the entertainment factor. The walkouts, the music, the outfits, the celebrities in the crowd.’’
If Davis is right, and the fight grosses $US400 million, it will be one of the most lucrative fights ever. The current top spot is held by the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight in 2015, which brought in nearly $US600 million, according to ESPN. Mayweather alone made more than $US220 million from it. New York Times GETTY IMAGES
This will be the biggest money fight of the year, and likely one of the biggest ever. Here’s how all that money will be made, in order of importance.
The largest share of the revenue, perhaps 75 percent, will be generated by pay-per-view buys. The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight cost $US90 to $US100, the highest pay-per-view price ever. The price for Mayweather-McGregor has not been set, but White said this was a ‘‘superfight’’ and hinted that the price would be close to that high-water mark.