This doesn’t mean much for Mayweather because his money is guaranteed, so he is getting paid regardless. His overall take won’t be as much, but it will still be a pretty healthy check from Showtime (over $40 million).
The problem as Dan Rafael of ESPN points out is that Showtime needed the Pay-Per-View buys to be well over one million to make a profit and from the looks of it, that might not happen.
No official PPV #’s yet for Floyd but 2 industry sources tell me they look bad (under 1M). We’ll see. If true, heavy $$ losses for Showtime.
— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) May 7, 2013
If Mayweather PPV indeed does under 1M that will mean heavy $$ losses for Showtime. My sources tell me break even was about 1.1 or 1.2M buys
— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) May 7, 2013
The question begs why would the PPV numbers be so low? There are several reasons to consider, the first being the jump from HBO to Showtime. While the money was great from Showtime, the promotion just didn’t have the same juice. The Showtime All-Access, failed to attract the viewership that HBO’s 24/7 had in the past. Robert Guerrero unlike Miguel Cotto or even Victor Ortiz didn’t bring much to the promotion, as far as name recognition to the public.
Canelo Alvarez not being on the undercard probably cost Mayweather at least 250k Pay-Per-View buys. Alvarez’s fight with Austin Trout was well received and would have brought in a bigger audience.
Lastly, Manny Pacquiao getting KOed killed the little remaining buzz there was for a Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight. I have been to every Mayweather fight since he knocked out Ricky Hatton and this was the first post fight press conference that no one asked a question about Manny Pacquiao. The public has given up interest in the fight and some may have only been watching Mayweather with the hopes the megafight would be made in the future. Without that carrot dangling they had no motivation to drop $70 on a PPV.
There is one good thing that can come out of this. If the PPV numbers are low, there will be more pressure for Mayweather to fight Canelo Alvarez. I can’t imagine a fight with Amir Khan, Devon Alexander or Danny Garcia is going to inspire more PPV buys than Guerrero. While I think Mayweather might go in a different direction than Alvarez, Showtime and others will be pushing hard for it.