The venue, not the fight

A member of the media walks past the Thomas & Mack Center, site of the third presidential debate between Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at UNLV in Las Vegas, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016. AP

The fight venue, not the main protagonists, has temporarily seized the spotlight in the run-up to Manny Pacquiao’s comeback assignment with Jessie Vargas in Las Vegas on Nov. 5.

The Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is where Pacquiao hopes to snatch the American fighter’s WBO welterweight title next month.

Last Thursday morning, Manila time, the Center, a few miles from the world famous Vegas Strip, hosted the final debate between US presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Some media old timers in Vegas trumpeted that the last encounter between the Democratic and Republican standard bearers, watched by millions of viewers worldwide, could go down as the biggest spectacle their city has ever seen.

While the first debate drew 80 million and the second attracted 69 million, the Las Vegas Visitors and Conventions Bureau dreams that the third one would inch toward 100 million viewers, the daily Las Vegas Review Journal reported.

Glitter Gulch’s newspaper of record also quoted history professor Michael Green who said boxing’s classic heavyweight fights have become synonymous with Vegas.

“In a lot of ways this is almost like one of the old championship fights,” Green said, with Clinton and Trump standing in as the two “heavyweights in the ring.”

But at the end of the day, the question remains whether Thomas & Mack’s newfound fame could boost pay-per-view buys for the Pacquiao-Vargas tiff while enticing fans to fill the arena that could accommodate close to 20,000 fans to the rafters.

As I write this, seats are still up for grabs. One outlet was hawking tickets online, from $68 to $1,152 for various upper level locations, the cheapest prices to date for a Pacquiao championship fight, and up to a whopping $11,262 for a few lowest level and row 1 seats.

Bob Arum’s Top Rank Promotions also needs to score a knockout in terms of pay TV because cable industry giant HBO has passed on Pacquiao’s first bout since briefly hanging up his gloves.

Top Rank itself is distributing the PPV since HBO said the fight date was “unpalatable” and too close to another network PPV offering, the Sergey Kovalev vs Andre Ward bout on Nov. 19.