He carries the monicker “Money,” and it is for good reason. Floyd Mayweather moves the boxing financial meter like no one else in the game.
The numbers for pay-per-view of Mayweather vs. Miguel Cotto are in and they tell a make-it-rain story: The junior middleweight championship fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas generated a whopping 1.5 million pay-per-view buys and $94 million in domestic pay-per-view revenue, HBO Sports announced Friday.
The performance ranks as the second-highest grossing pay-per-view for a non-heavyweight fight in history.
No. 1 all-time remains Mayweather’s 2007 victory against Oscar De La Hoya, in which he also claimed a junior middleweight belt. That fight generated all-time records for any weight class with 2.46 million buys and $137 million in pay-per-view revenue.
And guess what? “The 1.5 million number is actual reported numbers,” Golden Boy CEO Schaefer, who promoted the fight, told ESPN.com. “The final number will definitely be bigger than what it is now.”
Check out these numbers: In nine HBO PPV main events, Mayweather has generated 9.6 million buys and $543 million in television revenue, according to HBO.
“Floyd Mayweather’s numbers are getting bigger and bigger and this number shows you the kind of draw he is,” Schaefer said. “He’s a superstar and able to capture the interest of a large audience. He has broken out of the boxing following and now has a mainstream following that is unmatched in the sport. The numbers keep getting bigger and bigger.”
HBO will replay Mayweather’s decision victory against Cotto on Saturday night, along with junior middleweight titlist Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s decision win against Shane Mosley, which was the co-feature of the card.
