The pay-per-view numbers for the Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley fight that you probably forgot even happened have been disappointing, unsurprisingly.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said Tuesday that the numbers were “terrible.” According to ESPN’s Dan Rafael, Arum estimated the number of buys to be between 400,000-500,000, though some are not even confident it will reach 400,000.
Arum says the fight lost money as Pacquiao was paid $20 million and Bradley $4 million for the bout. The promoter also said he thought two factors hurt the fan interest.
“Certainly the pushback from Manny’s gay remarks killed us,” Arum said. “It hurt us a lot. But I think it was also less a reaction to the match than a reaction to the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. It was a reaction like Mayweather got. Mayweather also got punished [by consumers].”
The comments Arum referenced are these ones from Pacquiao, which the Filipino continued to defend.
Fans shelled out a lot of money for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight last year. That fight was a disappointment and many did not feel they got a good value for their $100. Fans had very little interested in paying a ton of money to watch Pacquiao fight Bradley for a third time. This was just a fight with little intrigue, something Arum fails to see.
It will be interesting to see whether Pacquiao retires as he has said, or whether he will continue to fight despite his blossoming political career.
