Floyd Jr.’s One Million PPV Buys, “Missed It By That Much”
Just like my favorite detective Maxwell Smart would say when he misfired or was “just a little bit off” in his aim, all I am left to say about my 350,000-500,000 PPV buy prediction for Floyd vs. Marquez is, “Missed it by that much!”
As reported on Newsday.com The Mayweather vs. Marquez bout generated one million buys. As for the breakdown, 525,000 buyers were cable subscribers, while the remaining 475,000 bought the fight on the dish.
Really I was feeling pretty confident about my prediction as the days to the fight got closer and tickets to the live show were more than abundant. Everyone knows that live ticket sales are indicative of PPV sales…right?
Adding to my confidence during the night of the fight was when a party of 4 sat down ringside while giving each other high fives and hooting and hollering like kids on Christmas morning. As I ease dropped into their conversation I clearly heard one of them say, “Can you believe the casino just gave us these seats?” With that I figured that this fight was the box office goat I claimed it was.
Much to my astonishment rumors circulated very early the following week about that magical One Million PPV buy number and they were confirmed by HBO days later.
From the moment I heard that number I felt something was more than a tad askew but checks with top Industry sources gave me no reason to believe there was anything to get the Stink-O-Meter to register.
One highly placed source told me on Sunday, ”I was skeptical about the Mayweather-Marquez PPV numbers. But I haven’t heard any hard evidence that contradicts them, so I’ll take HBO at its word.”
What that tells me is that like myself, there are others wondering about the much ballyhooed PPV number and maybe are busy doing some research of their own.
Whether the numbers are true or it’s “the old cable company cooking the books to make things look better and fool the boxing public trick”, the desired cause and effect took place and that is that Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been awarded a reason to try and outbid whoever he chooses to fight in 2010.
The numbers are what they are now and there seems nothing I or anyone else can do about it .
As to my way off prediction all I can say is:
“Sorry about that Chief!”
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Now all we need is for Golden Boy to roll out and say,
“This is KAOS, we don’t cook the books here!”
I agreed with your prediction but we just didn’t know that the people were silly enough to by the fight. Add in the key factors and you’ll see why we were off.
1. They moved the fight to the Mexican holiday.
2. Floyd hasn’t fought in over 19 months so his fans were excited.
3. Mis hermanos Mexicanos really thought that Marquez had a chance.
4. Golden Boy sold a lot of Wolf Tickets.
5. HBO sold a lot of Wolf Tickets.
People like us who know boxing wasn’t fooled. Especially, when PBF came in at 146. Even my love for boxing couldn’t make me buy the fight when PBF came in 2 pounds over. Even though I thought Oscar was too big for PAC I still bought the fight because I know PAC is a go getter. Two counter punchers should never be on PPV unless one of them has consistent one punch KO power. When I watched the replay I was so glad I did get it. But, bets believe I’ll be getting PAC vs. Cotto
Thanks M-Dubb
I really didnt take the Mexican Holiday into account, maybe you have a point there. I know 99.9% of the media there was pulling for Marquez although every one to a man didn’t think he could do it.
My biggest fear is that by the selling of these Wolf Tickets, as you call them, HBO & Golden Boy have created a monster( Floyd) that they will find is a beast they have will no control of.