What Arum didn’t say, however, is whether Pacquiao’s comments will affect the PPV numbers in a negative or positive way.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The old adage that any publicity is good publicity gets put to the test on April 9 when Manny Pacquiao completes a trilogy with Timothy Bradley at the prestigious MGM Grand.
Pacquiao recently came under fire for making some rather despicable comments toward the LGBT community, essentially equating them to less than animals. The public backlash Pacquiao endured for the comments — at least in the USA — was swift, appropriate, and struck Pacquiao where it hurts the most: his bank account.
In a recent interview with our very own Joe Habeeb, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum acknowledged the inevitability of Pacquiao’s harmful words having an impact on the Pacquiao-Bradley III pay-per-view sales.
“It’ll affect it, sure. I mean, you don’t make a statement like that and (end up) not affecting it. I don’t know how it’ll affect it but it certainly will affect it,” Arum said.
“My concern was that there were a lot of people offended by that remark — by those remarks — and I think Manny apologized, and I took our position for our company basically saying that those remarks were uncalled for.”
It’s not the first time Arum has condemned Pacquiao’s comments, which is refreshing in a sport where some fighters like Devon Alexander still make extremely ignorant statements about the LGBT community publicly. While Alexander will probably never be a sociology professor at Harvard, and thus his opinion shouldn’t reflect where boxing as a whole stands on the topic, it’s still troubling that some people in the sport can so proudly and casually spew such ridiculous nonsense.
So, will Pacquiao’s remarks in any way affect the number of people that order the pay-per-view, as Arum claims? Some potential viewers might be turned off by the comments and opt not to tune in at all on April 9. Others might also find his opinions off-putting but will still buy the pay-per-view for the villain effect in hopes of seeing Pacquiao lose. And of course, then there are those sad souls who agree with and support Pacquiao’s stance who won’t think twice about ordering it.
Is there no such thing as bad publicity? Perhaps. But regardless, the biggest threat to Arum’s coveted Pacquiao-Bradley III pay-per-view numbers still remains the general lack of interest in seeing Pacquiao end his decorated career by facing an opponent he’s already fought twice.
