Tickets for Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao megafight on sale soon

ByDan Rafael ESPN logo
Wednesday, April 22, 2015

With 10 days to go before the megafight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, the parties reached a resolution Wednesday that will allow for tickets to the May 2 fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, as well as at closed circuit locations around the city, to go on sale.

Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter, told ESPN's Lindsay Czarniak that the sides had finally worked out their differences and that tickets would go on sale shortly.

"I want to apologize to the public for this dragging out for the length of time that it has," Arum said. "At least we were able to sort it out."

Leslie Moonves, the president and CEO of CBS Corp., which has a contract with Mayweather, stepped in to bring the camps together, just as he did in the negotiation to make the fight in the first place. He has been friends with Arum for many years and also has a good business relationship with Al Haymon, Mayweather's adviser. Arum and Haymon are bitter enemies.

The MGM Grand Garden Arena is scaled to generate approximately $74 million in ticket sales, more than three times the gate record, but the contract between Top Rank, Mayweather Promotions and the MGM Grand remained unsigned because of bickering over the ticket allotments to each camp. Moonves intervened Wednesday.

"He's been involved the whole way and he called for a conference call this morning," Top Rank president Todd duBoef told ESPN.com.

Moonves, Arum, duBoef and Haymon were on the call, duBoef said.

"It was very civil -- no animosity," duBoef said. "We're all very appreciative of [Moonves'] role in getting this resolved."

The hangup was that there were a number of issues that were agreed to in the contracts between Mayweather Promotions and Top Rank, including the distribution of tickets. However, Top Rank said that when it received the site agreement -- another contract between Mayweather Promotions, Top Rank and the MGM Grand -- elements of it were contradictory to what had been agreed to between the promotional companies in their signed agreements with each other.

"That's where the disconnect was, and we got it worked out," duBoef said.

DuBoef said that as long as the site agreement paperwork Top Rank receives is reflective of what was agreed to on the conference call they would sign it and tickets would go on sale.

"We'd like to put them on sale immediately. Hopefully, when the ink dries on the contract," duBoef said.

That means tickets could be on sale as soon as Wednesday afternoon Pacific Time. However, duBoef said only about 500 of the roughly 16,000 tickets available will go on public sale. The rest are controlled by Mayweather Promotions, Top Rank and the MGM Grand, who will distribute the tickets -- which everyone has to pay for -- to their customers, the fighter camps, the fight sponsors, HBO and Showtime (who are putting on the joint pay-per-view), as well as the brokers with whom they do business.

The face value of the tickets will be $1,500, $2,500, $3,500, $5,000, $7,500 and $10,000 depending on seating, but duBoef said none of the $10,000 tickets would be part of the public sale, which will not include any floor seats.

Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe could not be reached for comment, nor could an MGM spokesperson.

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