Pacquiao vs Clottey
LA Boxing Examiner | Ricardo Lois
Los Angeles - The drums of war come closer. Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey will fight Saturday night in Dallas, Texas.
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Pacquiao and Clottey have put in hours of road work, floor work, and sparring in Los Angeles and New York City respectively.
The battle plans are drawn, the combatants are ready, but today I ponder about a business aspect surrounding the bout.
HBO pay per view will be distributing the pay per view broadcast and in the eyes of some observers, Manny Pacquiao has become one of boxing's new pay per view sellers.
Pacquiao's dismantling of Miguel Cotto and Oscar De La Hoya did good business attracting approximately 1.25 million pay per view purchases each. The 2009 starching of Ricky Hatton garnered a little less than a million views, 850,000.
In each of those bouts Pacquiao's booming pay per view business was aided by one of boxing's biggest names and fighters with strong nationalistic or ethnic followings - Cotto [Puerto Rico], Hatton [United Kingdom], and De La Hoya [USA/Mexico].
So with the U.S. economy still in a recession, and Pacquiao fighting a less than household name in Ghana's Joshua Clottey, can Pacquiao break the million buy mark?
It will be a tough sell.
Pacquiao's classic rematch against Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez sold 400,000 buys. The bout was a long awaited rematch, was marketed to Mexican-Americans and Mexican nationals in the United States, but still fell short of the million buy mark.
Some may speculate 400,000 buys is about all Pacquiao can muster with Clottey as the B-side to his symphony of destruction.
Those pessimists do not add Pacquiao's new found popularity into the equation. After being marketed to the masses for fights against Marquez, De La Hoya, Hatton, and Cotto, Pacquiao is a much more familiar face to fight fans and sport fans.
The tour of Americas major networks - Jimmy Kimmel (ABC), 60 Minutes (CBS), and Good Morning America (NBC) - will help sell a few pay per views as well.
[Listen to a special post-fight radio show 30 minutes following Pacquiao's battle with Clottey on March 13 at www.theboxingtruth.com. Phone lines will be open for fan interaction and comments.]
1,000,000 buys may be unlikely, but a tank job of 400,000 cannot be logically expected either.
The finally tally should be interesting and crucial if about between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather is to ever materialize. Check back here, at the Los Angeles Boxing Examiner, tomorrow to find out why.
truth@theboxingtruth.com
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Source: Examiner.com
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