Pacquiao-Bradley 3 was dead in the water from the beginning.
No matter how much they tried the buzz just never came and considering how much Pacquiao was paid ($20 million) it shouldn’t be a surprise that Top Rank lost money on the fight.
The PPV numbers are coming in and they will barely hit 400k. Bob Arum while talking to ESPN puts the blame squarely on Pacquiao (and some on Mayweather).
“Yes, it loses money,” Arum said. “It was not one our big successes. It happens. We’re big boys. Do I feel good about it? No.”
“Certainly the pushback from Manny’s gay remarks killed us,” Arum said. “It hurt us a lot. But I think it was also less a reaction to the match than a reaction to the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. It was a reaction like Mayweather got. Mayweather also got punished [by consumers].”
The difference between Mayweather-Berto and Pacquiao-Bradley is Bradley has a higher profile and has fought on successful PPVs in the past.
Mayweather and Pacquiao don’t care because they got their money regardless, but if they do come out of retirement they will need better opponents if anyone else wants to make any money.