The Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao megafight last Saturday was projected to break all records for pay-per-view sales — but if the early indicators coming in a week later are accurate, those early predictions may have been on the conservative side.
According to numbers revealed by Yahoo! Sports this week , the number of Mayweather vs. Pacquiao PPV buys is already closing in on the record set in 2007 by Mayweather’s fight against Oscar De La Hoya — with more than 60 percent of the numbers still unreported.
The only numbers reported so far come from satellite networks DirecTV and Dish Network, as well as AT&T u-Verse and Verizon FIOS services. But cable companies such as Comcast and Time Warner have yet to report their numbers — and cable companies generally account for roughly 60 percent of revenue from pay-per-view boxing matches.
From just the four non-cable services reporting numbers, however, Mayweather vs. Pacquiao has already accumulated 2.25 million PPV buys.
Those numbers alone already make the fight the second-highest selling pay-per-view of all time, topping Mayweather’s 2013 fight against Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, which sold 2.2 million. The number is also just short of the 2.48 million buys for Mayweather vs. De la Hoya.
More importantly, assuming that cable services will count for their usual percentages, the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight will end up selling a truly astonishing 5.65 million pay per views.
That number would be 895,000 more than the previous top two PPV sellers combined. To put that in perspective, a fight that sells 895,000 pay-per-views would become one of the top 40 PPV fights ever.
If the early numbers hold up, Floyd Mayweather will pocket an incredible $250 million for the single fight, with that number potentially rising as high as $275 million, according to figures compiled by the Business Insider financial news site.
As for the fight’s clear loser, Manny Pacquiao, in the negotiations for the fight, only “settled” for 40 percent of the fighters’ combined purse. That will leave Pacquiao with a paycheck for the May 2 fight of at least $170 million, and possibly as much as $190 million.
Pacquiao’s current net worth is a reported $175 million, meaning that by taking part in the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight, he essentially doubled his wealth. Of course, after taxes and payments to his trainer and staff, Pacquiao won’t take home quite that much.
Floyd Mayweather’s reported net worth before his payday for his fight with Manny Pacquiao was $380 million.
[Image: Jamie Squire/Getty Images]