Everyone into the ring ... well, at least the store
You’re probably not going to watch the Fight of the Century in person on May 2.
But at least you can buy a $35 T-shirt — or even a $10,000 framed charcoal pastel — at a pop-up merchandise store that opened in a downtown Las Vegas parking lot at noon Friday.
Posters, T-shirts, caps, boxing gloves, jackets and artwork are going for $20 to $10,000 at the MayPacStore as megafight mania for the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao showdown at MGM Grand Garden arena begins in Las Vegas. The store stayed open until midnight Friday and will be open noon-midnight today and Sunday and noon-10 p.m. during the week.
Business was steady in the temporary 1,700-square-foot store in the lot next to the Park on Fremont gastropub at 506 Fremont St. at Las Vegas Boulevard North.
The store included interactive games that allowed customers to throw punches into pads and also pose for photos.
GoPro Cameras were documenting the punches in the interactive game and the photos that were taken were sent to the store customers’ emails for free, said Sean Ryan, vice president of merchandise for Anschutz Entertainment Group, the Los Angeles-based sports and entertainment company licensed to sell official fight merchandise.
“Business was excellent in the downtown store and we expect things to pick up after 6:30, 7 p.m.,” Ryan said.
Anschutz Entertainment will also be selling the fight merchandise at the MGM Resorts International properties on the Strip, where the much-awaited boxing match will stage watch parties. Nearly all of the 50,000 closed-circuit TV seats at the MGM Resorts sites were sold Thursday afternoon.
Most of the T-shirts being sold were printed locally, Ryan said.
The pop-up store was selling a $400 jacket showing Mayweather and Pacquiao on the back with their respective nation’s flags also on the jacket — an American flag for Mayweather, who lives in Las Vegas, and the Filipino flag for Pacquiao.
The fight program will sell for $30 and be available Tuesday, he said.
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL