Bob Arum, founder and CEO of Top Rank, is pointing the finger at Al Haymon, chief adviser to Floyd Mayweather Jr., accusing the latter of purposefully holding out tickets for the May 2 mega-fight.
Two weeks before Mayweather is scheduled to put his unblemished 47-0 record on the line against Filipino superstar, eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao, tickets for the public have yet to be released. When asked about this, Arum was quick to shift the blame to the other side.
“It’s Haymon,” Arum stated.
The MGM Grand can accommodate 16,200 people, but only about six percent of those seats or less will be available to the public – that’s according to the promoters – but there is a possibility that tickets won’t be available to the public at all, according to Chris Matcovich, a spokesman for aggregator TiqIQ.
Matcovich broke down the possibility in an interview with Bloomberg.
“It was supposed to be three weeks ago, then two weeks, then this week, and my gut feeling is that they won’t have that public sale,” said Matcovich said via telephone.
Tickets for the Las Vegas super fight, which is projected to bring in at least $400 million in revenue, are currently listed on TiqIQ for an average of $11,922, which is 14 percent more than the final average for the most recent Super Bowl.
If there’s no public sale, it means that all tickets were purchased and divided between the MGM Grand and the promoters. In other words, those tickets will eventually filter down to people who have connections, celebrities, friends, the filthy rich, etc.
There has been mass confusion coming from both sides of the isle. Top Rank, the promotion company representing Manny Pacquiao, initially said the sale would be in March. Leonard Ellerbe, chief executive of Mayweather Promotions, said the sale would be this week; it hasn’t happened yet, and it may never happen.
The MGM Grand issued a statement, urging buyers to use extreme caution when purchasing tickets – if any are issued – some tickets are going as high as $50,000 if you’re important.
“Please be aware that tickets for the May 2, 2015, Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight are not yet available for purchase. Buyers should use extra caution when purchasing alleged tickets from unofficial source,s for fraudulent or counterfeit tickets will not be accepted.”
