Boxing site fighthype.com, quoting multiple industry sources, is reporting that the Golovkin-Lemieux fight made approximately 150,000 buys, which is low compared to the first PPV fights of Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Maywetrher, Jr. that reached 300,000 buys.
The low PPV sales turnout were compensated by the huge gate revenue from the fully sold-out tickets at Madison Square Garden.
Leonard Ellerbe, CEO of Mayweather Promotions, has commented on the disappointing PPV turnout in his Twitter post last Oct. 22.
“You don’t become a PPV attraction overnight, it takes years of making that happen. There are many factors and few have succeeded,” Ellerbe said.
“If it was that easy anybody could do it, most have no clue how difficult it is, big diff being a star in boxing and having star power,” he added.
Ellerbe cited the reasons why Mayweather became a PPV star and how he dealt with hatred from biased fans during his reign as the top PPV attraction in boxing.
“Love him or hate him, he’s a genius. Beat everybody put in front of him and busted his ass by his hard work and dedication,” he explained.
Ellerbe said that despite the hatred, Mayweather earned his place in the sport through hard work and dedication to his profession.
“The money is up across the board, and yet most continue to hate on him. You can’t change history, he earned everything he got by hard work,” he said
He said that Mayweathedr has done so much for the others in the profession in terms of awareness and opportunities that came along the way.
“All the fighters are getting record purses, and it’s because of him. Tons in and around sport got opportunities because of the awareness,” he said.
“He beat everyone in his era, became a global superstar, changed the game, brought incredible visibility to the sport and most still hate,”
Ellerbe also cited his team’s unrelenting efforts to promote the Mayweather brand despite the hate campaigns by his rivals in the sport.
“You better have one hell of a ride or die team also. When most were hating we were working, when most were sleeping we were working,” he said.
While Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions insists the target was only 150,000 PPV buys, industry experts say it was too low for the hype that HBO put in to the build up of the fight and from the trend that was established based on initial gate sales.
“I’ve heard a lot of bizarre speculation that we did very poorly or that we’re going to lose money, and to be honest with you, I don’t know where any of that came from,” Loeffler told Yahoo Sports.
“We’re tracking to be about a few thousand over 150,000, which is the number we were shooting for when we put this show together.”
