Floyd Mayweather Jr. is a little over a week from the fight of his life against Canelo Alvarez.
Win or lose Mayweather will paid handsomely, after reports of him earning a record $41 million purse for this fight surfaced.
Mayweather Jr. was recently profiled by ESPN’s Tim Keown, and during their time together, Keown got to see up close and personal how “Money Mayweather” spends him money.
HE IS STANDING in a Foot Locker in the Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids, shortly after his plane has landed. The amount of commerce taking place around him is astounding. Mayweather has decided he wants to play basketball at his old high school but doesn’t want to check into the hotel and change first. The obvious solution: Take the crew, including a number of friends and family members from his hometown, into the Foot Locker to purchase the gear necessary to head straight to the gym. Shoes, shirts, shorts, socks — they’re being grabbed and tried on and brought to the register without conscience.
He looks around to make sure nobody is watching before holding out a slip of paper cupped in his right hand. It is a bank slip, and Floyd is watching me watch it as my eyes attempt to focus on the balance. I look at the numbers spread out across the thermal paper. I had heard that Floyd does his banking the old-fashioned way: going inside, talking to a real-life teller. He is also known to be a big proponent of maximum liquidity. Still, the amount of digits spread across the bottom-right corner doesn’t seem possible.
I look up to see Floyd smiling. He begins to laugh. I say something unintelligible about too many numbers. I’m not sure what prompted this. Perhaps he mistook my look of fatigue for disapproval? Given his spending habits, is he concerned with pre-empting the inevitable talk that he will end up broke? Or is it simply one more example of the man’s hubris? I look down one more time to make sure I got it right. And yes, it’s right there, 11 numbers long.
There is more than $123 million in Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s bank account.
He nods, folds the slip and says, “One account, baby.”
What else is there to say?