500 fight tickets to finally go on sale

Promoters Leonard Ellerbe and Bob Arum said Wednesday that a verbal agreement has been reached to resolve a disagreement over ticket allocation for the May 2 Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao fight at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, told The Times on Wednesday afternoon he was waiting to sign a contract finalizing the deal, and once that was complete, 500 tickets would be put on public sale.

Tickets priced $1,500, $2,500, $3,500, $5,000 and $7,500 will be available for sale at noon at mgmgrand.com and ticketmaster.com and by calling (800) 745-3000.

The remainder of the tickets will be split up as agreed upon in the original negotiations that led to a signed fight contract by Mayweather and Pacquiao in February.

Under that deal, according to officials not authorized to disclose the arrangement, MGM Grand was to receive 40% of the tickets, with Mayweather Promotions and Arum’s Top Rank Inc. equally splitting the remainder.

Many of those tickets will be placed on the secondary market, sold at prices that could reach $100,000, although the time crunch caused by the ticket delay could lessen the value.

A new site agreement contract was crafted to stage the bout at MGM Grand, and in the original language that was forwarded to Top Rank, the promoter and Pacquiao would receive 2,000 fewer tickets than they originally agreed upon, according to an official not authorized to talk about details of the dispute.

On Tuesday, without providing details of the disagreement, Arum said he was unwilling to sign a site agreement deal unless it exactly reflected the ticket allocation agreement that was previously made.

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