The upcoming fight between Floyd Mawyeather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao was expected to set several PPV, gate and over financial records in the sport of boxing, but it might be exceeding expectations with still more than a month to go.

Selling more than 15,000 tickets, the live gate is going to generate over $74 million in revenue according to Top Rank and Bob Arum. 

The initial predictions were set at just over $40 million, with tickets ranging from $1000 to $5000, but the huge demand has raised the price to $1500 to $7500 and after shuffling the number of tickets in each price category and increasing the face value of the top ticket to $10,000, we’re looking at a number closer to $74 million.

Most of the tickets are available to the public. The fighter camps, promoters, Showtime, HBO and the MGM Grand each control a share of tickets, selling to their people and share of customers separately. But the big money isn’t coming from the gate; it’s about selling PPV units, and we’re going to see a new record being set here as well.

The record for a PPV fight is at 2.4 million from 2007 when Oscar De La Hoya lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. The expectations are not just to exceed that, but to actually go past 3 million views. The PPV price is expected to be at a greedy-looking $100 despite both fighters being past their prime and six years past the date the fight should have happened in. People are still going to pay and help generate over $300 million in domestic views, which includes the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

And there are the foreign rights, which might go over $35 million. In the Philippines alone the rights were sold for $10 million, a record for a Pacquiao fight. In Mexico both Azteca and Televisa will broadcast the fight, purchasing it for $2.3 million. Tecate will sponsor the fight, winning the bidding war against Corona by offering $5.6 million.

A fight that even before the PPV is generating over $120 million can’t be happening at the wrong time, right? We wouldn’t have gotten a fraction of these numbers if we made the fight five years ago. It turned out that we’re doing the fight at the right time, I guess, not that we’re geniuses for waiting this long.

There’s a 60-40 split in Mayweather’s favor. Not that it made the negotiations, debating over every little thing, easier. For example: Arum said Pacquiao has approval rights over the singer of the Filipino national anthem and Mayweather will have the final say on the singer of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Who cares?!

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