PACQUIAO-HATTON: 1.28M PPV buys

[BlackHawk]

PACQUIAO WATCH: 1.28M PPV buys

THIS column recently chanced upon Michael Koncz inside the coffee shop at the NAIA airport.

Koncz, along with Manny Pacquiao and lawyer Jeng Gacal, just arrived from the United States where the Filipino pound for pound boxing king shot a commercial with Las Angeles Laker’s Kobe Bryant and was on his way to General Santos.

After exchanging greetings, I asked him if the Pacquiao-Cotto is already a go.

No luck. Despite all the hype, no contract has been signed between Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto and Pacquiao.

The catch weight has become a thorny issue.

Cotto wants it done at 145-lb while Manny insists on 143-lb as the official weight.

Koncz says the two camps may eventually settle at 144.

As usual, Konz was coy about the fine prints of the contract.

That includes the guaranteed prize, the upside of the pay-per-view proceeds and other collateral income of the blockbuster fight.

With Cotto already a permanent fixture in the US professional boxing scene with a strong fan base in his adopted home city of New York, the fight, if it pushes through, should be a good bet to score pretty good at the box office.

But there should be no question as to who will get the bulk of PPV proceeds.

A 65-35 share – 70-30 even – in the PPV buys in favor of Manny should not be a problem.

This time, Manny’s camp should stand its ground as far as PPV proceeds are concerned.

When Manny fought Ricky Hatton, he was made to believe that Hatton will pull numbers in his native country England that could equal if not surpass the US PPV market.

Manny had to settle for a 50-50 split with the additional two percent, according to reports, coming from Top Rank’s Bob Arum and Golden Boy Promotions’ share from the PPV to sweeten the Filipino’s fight purse.

As it turned out, Manny got shortchanged in the deal.

According to Koncz, the US PPV buys for the Pacquiao-Hatton fight that ended in two rounds reportedly reached 930,000 while the UK proceeds was a “dismal” 350,000 bringing the total to 1.28 million buys.

The Pacquiao-Cotto fight should easily top the 750,000 mark.

It is essential, therefore, for Manny to get a guaranteed purse not lower than his last fight with Hatton. He should also gross no lower than US$15 million after all figures are added in.

Forget about Floyd Mayweather Jr., that superfight may not come at all before Manny plunges into politics next year.

This corner will be disappointed if Manny’s team cannot get the best in the deal.

The Calculation is for USA and UK only. Asia and Middle East not included in the calculation were Manny Pacquiao have outstanding fan base.

[LEGION]

Now it's 143

[JazMerkin]

It didn't pull in 930,000, HBO sources implied that it was 825,000, which Arum didn't want to release because it was lower than PBF-Hatton which was something like 900,000. Stupid on Arum's part.

I'm amazed the fight pulled in just 350,000 in the UK, I got the impression more people watched it than that, that's not that much higher than the Malignaggi fight. I think the extra 100,000 they've added to the US figure probably came off the UK number. Even so that's a lot lower than I expected, seeing as the Mayweather-Hatton fight did 1.3m PPVs over here.

Well, nice to see some nice, balanced impartial journalism there in that article. Is that you XaduBoxer?

[Dr. Steelhammer]

They will settle at 144.

[Taeth]

Didn't Mayweahter-Hatton do more than 500k in the UK? I heard up to a million buys.

[fan johnny]

It didn't pull in 930,000, HBO sources implied that it was 825,000, which Arum didn't want to release because it was lower than PBF-Hatton which was something like 900,000. Stupid on Arum's part.

I'm amazed the fight pulled in just 350,000 in the UK, I got the impression more people watched it than that, that's not that much higher than the Malignaggi fight. I think the extra 100,000 they've added to the US figure probably came off the UK number. Even so that's a lot lower than I expected, seeing as the Mayweather-Hatton fight did 1.3m PPVs over here.

Well, nice to see some nice, balanced impartial journalism there in that article. Is that you XaduBoxer?

Ah... there was no official release of the PPV numbers.... we don't know what it actually did and how can we believe any number at this point because it all leads to lies. Why else would there be a release of the actual numbers?

Having said that, the total number is believable.

I don't agree with the article being Pacquiao got the short end of the deal because it supposes Hatton got PPV numbers and Pacquiao got the US PPV numbers. I think both fights got what they deserved.

[JazMerkin]

It didn't pull in 930,000, HBO sources implied that it was 825,000, which Arum didn't want to release because it was lower than PBF-Hatton which was something like 900,000. Stupid on Arum's part.

I'm amazed the fight pulled in just 350,000 in the UK, I got the impression more people watched it than that, that's not that much higher than the Malignaggi fight. I think the extra 100,000 they've added to the US figure probably came off the UK number. Even so that's a lot lower than I expected, seeing as the Mayweather-Hatton fight did 1.3m PPVs over here.

Well, nice to see some nice, balanced impartial journalism there in that article. Is that you XaduBoxer?

Ah... there was no official release of the PPV numbers.... we don't know what it actually did and how can we believe any number at this point because it all leads to lies. Why else would there be a release of the actual numbers?

Having said that, the total number is believable.

I don't agree with the article being Pacquiao got the short end of the deal because it supposes Hatton got PPV numbers and Pacquiao got the US PPV numbers. I think both fights got what they deserved.

Why would HBO sources lie?? It's better for them to say how high it is & 825,000 is HIGH, they're not going to downplay the figures because the higher they are the better for them. On the other hand Pacquiao's people do have a reason to inflate it. So yeah, I'll believe the much quoted figure of 825,000 that came out of HBO 'unofficially'. I'm still surprised if the fight did that little over here. Although considering the size of the UK compared to US, we do a much better percentage of PPVs.

[Gandalf]

Wanting to keep PPV figures a secret is undeniably gay.

Somebody should give Arum a slap.