Pacquiao-Rios produces disappointing pay-per-view figures
Initial numbers for pay-per-view buys for Manny Pacquiao’s last fight against Brandon Rios are not looking good. According to Sports Illustrated’s Chris Manix, the initial estimates were in the 500,000 to 550,000 range, a far cry from Pacquiao’s usual numbers.
Bob Arum tells SI that Pacquiao-Rios pay per view numbers are somewhere between 500,000 and 550,000.
— Chris Mannix (@ChrisMannixSI) December 4, 2013
The fight didn’t generate a lot of buzz in the United States as it was held halfway around the world in Macau. The number, however, does not include the buys from the Chinese market.
According to Mannix, Arum said that Juan Manuel Marquez is not interested with a fifth fight against Pacquiao after finally getting a win last year. This means that Timothy Bradley will likely be Pacquiao’s opponent for April 12.
Pacquiao was expected to earn as much as $30 million for his fight against Rios but this number might fall because of the paltry pay-per-view sales.
Manix later updated the estimate and lowered it to 450,000 to 500,000.
More info coming in on #PacquiaoRios PPV: Multiple sources say the number is UNDER 500K buys. Somewhere between 450K and 500K.
— Chris Mannix (@ChrisMannixSI) December 4, 2013
In his last four fights, Pacquiao had very good pay-per-view numbers. His third fight against Marquez in November 2011 generated 1.4 million buys, his decision loss to Bradley got 900,000 buys, and his knockout loss to Marquez raked in 1.15 million buys. In comparison, Floyd Mayweather’s last fight against Saul Alvarez sold a handsome 2.2 million pay-per-view buys.
