Admission to fight weigh-in not free
HOLLYWOOD—Even admission in the side event of the Fight of the Century is not free.
For the first time in modern boxing, fight fans attending the official weigh-in of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao on May 1 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas will be charged $10 each with the proceeds going to charity.
The amount is a pittance, though, considering that the lowest-priced ticket in boxing’s grandest, most expensive fight scheduled the next day costs $1,500 (or as much as $6,000 in the resale market), the costliest being $10,000, which is not for sale to the public.
In all, there are 16,800 seats available on fight night.
Though tickets have not been released, the bulk of them have been cornered by Mayweather Promotions and the MGM chain. Top Rank Promotions, which handles Pacquiao’s bouts, the two fighters’ camps, and joint fight coverors HBO and Showtime also have seat allotments.
Fewer than a thousand tickets will reportedly be available for sale next week, fueling speculations that ticket prices for the projected blockbuster are bound to get even higher.
“All of the money that is generated from the weigh-in, every dollar, is going to charity,” Brad Jacobs, executive event producer for Top Rank, told ESPN.com Thursday.
Split revenue
Under the income-distribution scheme, revenues will be split between Pacquiao’s charity recipient Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and Mayweather’s pick Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.
With the hype generated by the fight, the weigh-is expected to draw about 5,000 fans, a figure surpassing the 4,500 attendance prior to Mayweather’s clash with Ricky Hatton. The fight itself is expected to post record gate revenues of $74 million.
Francisco Aguilar, chair of the Nevada Athletic Commission, told sports.yahoo.com that more than the additional revenue, the weigh-in admission fee was designed to lessen the volume of people expected to troop to MGM Grand in the weekend.
