The official promoter of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Brandon Rios welterweight title fight in Macau on November generated only around $500,000 pay-per-view buys in the United States as confirmed by Top Rank CEO Bob Arum.
The PPV income of Manny Pacquiao is far cry from his most recent fight prior to Rios. Last December 2013, Pacquiao’s losing effort to Juan Manuel Marquez generated 1.15 million PPV buys.
According to some officials of Top Rank, the Pacquiao-Rios card generated far less PPV buys compared to the September showdown featuring Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, which generated a total of two million PPV buy and did record revenue numbers.
Top Rank CEO Bob Arum confirmed during an interview with ESPN.com. He was quoted as saying “The numbers are coming in like we expected,” Arum told ESPN.com. “There was a little delay because of Thanksgiving, but it will be somewhere in the area of 500,000 buys.” Arum stated.
Bob Rum added further, “We ran all our numbers on something a little less than 500,000, but figuring we’d do around 500,000, and that’s what we’re going to wind up doing,” he added. “It means 490,000 or 510,000, something like that.” the Top Rank CEO said.
The Pacquiao vs. Rios fight in Macau generated a capacity crowd of over 13,000 at the Cotai Arena. Comparing the previous PPV income of Pacquiao, on his fight against Oscar Dela Hoya in 2008, the numbers hit 1.24 million.
Against Juan Manuel Marquez during the year 2011 PPV income reached 1.4 million while Pacquiao’s fourth fight against Marquez, PPV income was recorded at 1.15 million.