Mayweather-Pacquiao ticket prices reach 'absurd heights', even millionaires struggle
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Updated 01/05/2015 at 08:49 GMT
Ticket prices for Saturday’s night’s ‘fight of the century’ between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are reaching “absurd heights” as millionaires scramble to get the last remaining seats.
Mayweather-Pacquiao ticket prices reach 'absurd heights', even millionaires struggle
Image credit: AFP
For $797 (£583) you can purchase a seat to watch the fight – section 13, row W at the MGM Grand Arena Garden to be precise.
However, this price isn’t for the actual fight, but the weigh-in, which is traditionally free. Tickets cost $10 but are available on resale platforms for many, many times that.
About $800 will merely get you a chance to watch each man climb up on a scale at Friday afternoon's weigh-in before engaging in a brief stare down as cameras flash. If it's really exciting, someone will need to take their shirt off to make weight.
Oh, you want to see the actual fight on May 2? Well, on Thursday afternoon you could buy what is essentially a front-row seat on StubHub for $351,005.25. If that's too much, four front-row seats were available on RazorGator.com for $294,552 per ticket.
As Wetzel explains, that amount of money could buy a four-bedroom house in Las Vegas.
Even Floyd Mayweather Sr, who has been around boxing for decades, says: “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Of course, there is no guarantee that anyone will pay this price, and Stubhub says the average price it has sold tickets at is $6,268 – still the highest for any event in the company’s history.
The entire takings for gate receipts is expected to top $72m. As Wetzel reports, the existing record for a boxing fight was the £20m grossed when Mayweather fought Canelo Alvarez in 2013.
Wetzel also explains how even the most privileged are being left behind in the race for tickets:
Literally everyone was scrambling for seats. Earlier this week, the daughter of Kirk Kerkorian, the billionaire Vegas mogul and former majority owner of MGM Mirage – you could say he literally built the host hotel – was texting executives at Top Rank Boxing looking to buy a seat.
At one point the MGM Grand said it would only offer its allotment to regular customers who carry at least a $250,000 line of credit with the casino. Those, the company said, went quickly.
Only 1,000 tickets went to the public (selling out in less than 60 seconds), which is why the secondary market is basically in unchartered territory.
So who is actually paying the extreme high prices for one of the most hyped sports events of all time?
According to Stubhub’s Glenn Lerhman, "The clientele for this event are your actors, musicians and your high-roller businessmen.”
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