Pacquiao-Mayweather tickets sell in 1 minute flat

By: Roy Luarca - 10 years ago

ONE MORE CELEB FAN Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves poses for a souvenir shot with—in his word—the “amazing” Manny and wife Jinkee when he visited the Pacquiaos’ Los Angeles home. Outside Wild Card gym, a fashion-forward Mommy Dionisia Pacquiao gets ready to hit the outdoors. (More stories on Pages A16 and A18) CONTRIBUTED PHOTO FROM PACQUIAO’S INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT/ REM ZAMORA

HOLLYWOOD—Gone in seconds.

That was how fast tickets for the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao colossal battle were gobbled up on Thursday even if they came at very stiff prices.

So unless your name is Warren Buffett or Madonna, you will probably have to watch the bout on pay-per-view.

USA Today reported that the sale for 500 tickets made available to the public opened at 3 p.m.—by 3:01, visitors at Ticketmaster’s phone hotline received a message that tickets were no longer available.

These were priced between $1,500, the cheapest, and $7,500, which wasn’t even the costliest. They were snapped up in a matter of seconds.

There were also $10,000 tickets, but they weren’t made available to the public.

The unbelievable demand further raised the tickets’ resale value.

Just 45 minutes after the sale was stopped, the online ticketing website StubHub reported that the lowest cost being offered was now $5,796.75—for a seat in Row Q of the upper deck.

The most expensive retails for $141,575.28 (about P6.3 million) for a ringside seat.

A report by the celebrity news website TMZ claimed that it took less than 20 seconds for the tickets to disappear, even though they were the most expensive for any event ever.

Super Bowl eclipsed

According to TiqIQ, another online ticketing website, the average secondary market price for Mayweather-Pacquiao stands at $10,973.14—eclipsing the previous mark of $10,466.11 posted during the last Super Bowl in Phoenix.

ESPN reported that 14,000 tickets were actually made available for sale, but the majority of them were distributed among MGM Grand, Mayweather Promotions, Top Rank and major sponsors.

Nothing like this

At the tickets’ floor prices, the 16,800-seat MGM Grand will already bring an unprecedented $74 million in gate receipts, contributing to the projected $300 million to $400 million revenues for the grandest fight of all time.

Within minutes of the tickets going public, the market place shifted to resale sites which posted knockout prices of $100,000 and more for ringside seats, putting them beyond the reach of everyone but the world’s most rich and famous.

Another secondary site, Ticketliguidator.com, was offering floor seats for $55,000.

“This is an extremely unique event for us, we haven’t ever seen this,” StubHub spokesperson Cameron Papp told Reuters.

Prices may even go up

“The fact that they are going on sale with the fight only eight days away is really unique and the fact that there is lower inventory to the public is unique,” Papp said. “That is being reflected in the prices right now.”

StubHub, owned by eBay and the largest online ticket resale site in the United States, expects to see plenty of activity around the bout, leading right up to May 2.

Normally the market around a sporting event will see a drop in prices during the lead-up but Papp does not believe this will be the case for the Mayweather-Pacquiao bout.

“Being that this one is very unique and with the low inventory, right now I would expect prices to stay where they are or go up more,” said Papp, adding that sellers must show proof of ticket purchases before they are listed on StubHub.

“They are going fast and when the inventory gets lower, the prices are going to rise. Clearly people were waiting for this one to go on sale and watching the site. We’ve never seen prices sell that high.”

Pay-per-view: $500M

The welterweight showdown between the two best fighters of their generation is expected to become the top-grossing prize fight of all time, pulling in close to $500 million in pay-per-view.

For those wanting to get in on the Las Vegas buzz around the fight, many casinos will hold closed-circuit viewing parties and part of that experience will also include high-end tickets that will run in the $150 range.