My analysis of PPV buys of Pac and Floyd

I know most hate this topic but I am a numbers guy so I enjoy it. Counting either fighter's pre-ODLH PPV fights is not fair because those fights didn't benefit from the golden boost. Neither fighter was the economic force they are now. I also don't like including the ODLH fights because of how each fight was presented. The Floyd fight vs ODLH was promoted extensively and viewed as a close match by many. The Pac fight was viewed as a massacre of a rising star and thus promoted a little less. We are left with 4 post Oscar fights for Pac and 3 for Floyd. We could take the average of those but whether its me being a Pac fan or a logical assumption, I like to remove the Clottey fight. It was a fight on short notice against a fighter with no fan base.

This exclusions leave me with 3 fights a piece for the p4p cash cows of today. Both fought Hatton, a Mexican, and another popular fighter.
Floyd:
Hatton 940k
JMM 1mil
Shane 1.4mil
TOTAL 3.34mil
AVG 1.113 mil

Pac:
Hatton 850k
Cotto 1.25mil
Margo 1.15mil+ (assumed to be 1.15 for the analysis)
TOTAL 3.25mil
AVG 1.083mil

Comparing the averages, it looks like Floyd is right and deserves more than 50-50. He deserves 51-49 Also worth noting is the Hatton fights make the difference as well as Pac's fights were in worse economic times.

I hate this stuff. Nice work anyway.

Doesn't that seem close enough to you that 50/50 is really the only way this thing gets done. I just can't see those two egos doing anything else.

I was joking with the 51-49 talk. I only posted it because it ended up that close and interesting. I made a couple of assumptions to help out Pac but I think they are all fair assumptions. This fight will never get done for anything besides 50-50. I don't think Floyd really wants the fight and at this point I think Manny is over it as well. To top all the other obstacles off, I am guessing Floyd gets a fair amount of prison time which effectively ends his career as a P4P fighter. I don't see celebrities charged with charges that can amount up to 30+ years without them having enough evidence to get them on some of the charges. All he needs to get is 2 years and he will be 36-37 when he gets out. Floyd has never been the type of guy that gives the impression he will be fighting when he is too old.

UBeeg9cats wrote:I was joking with the 51-49 talk. I only posted it because it ended up that close and interesting. I made a couple of assumptions to help out Pac but I think they are all fair assumptions. This fight will never get done for anything besides 50-50. I don't think Floyd really wants the fight and at this point I think Manny is over it as well. To top all the other obstacles off, I am guessing Floyd gets a fair amount of prison time which effectively ends his career as a P4P fighter. I don't see celebrities charged with charges that can amount up to 30+ years without them having enough evidence to get them on some of the charges. All he needs to get is 2 years and he will be 36-37 when he gets out. Floyd has never been the type of guy that gives the impression he will be fighting when he is too old.

I was gonna say (but I hate this kinda stuff) that one thing your analysis doesn't factor in (and I'm not sure really can) are the popularity trajectories of the two men. I think I could make a plausible case that Manny's is moving upwards and Floyd's no better than flat and perhaps downwards.

But at the end of the day I really don't care how it gets done as long as it does get done. I'd love a return to real "prizefights" of a sort. Say each guy gets 1/3 and the winner gets the remaining third.

Floyd:
Hatton 940k
JMM 1mil
Shane 1.4mil
TOTAL 3.34mil
AVG 1.113 mil

Pac:
Hatton 850k
Cotto 1.25mil
Margo 1.15mil+ (assumed to be 1.15 for the analysis)
TOTAL 3.25mil
AVG 1.083mil

Floyd had advantages:
1-Hatton-undefeated at the time
2-Marquez has a strong latino fanbase; more importantly there was the curiosity factor as Floyd had been retired and was coming back
3-Shane- Shane was coming off a big win over Margarito and there seemed to be some legitimate danger for Floyd even though a good % of people believed he would win

Pac disadvantages:
1-Hatton had been dented
2-Cotto was seen as damaged after the Margarito fight; if he was still undefeated and hadn't taken damage that bout would have done more
3-Margarito-quite a few fans probably refused to buy it because of the Cheato factor

And still Floyd barely beat Pac; plus Pac put more butts in the seats to watch him live.

captainanddew wrote:Floyd:
Hatton 940k
JMM 1mil
Shane 1.4mil
TOTAL 3.34mil
AVG 1.113 mil

Pac:
Hatton 850k
Cotto 1.25mil
Margo 1.15mil+ (assumed to be 1.15 for the analysis)
TOTAL 3.25mil
AVG 1.083mil

Floyd had advantages:
1-Hatton-undefeated at the time
2-Marquez has a strong latino fanbase; more importantly there was the curiosity factor as Floyd had been retired and was coming back
3-Shane- Shane was coming off a big win over Margarito and there seemed to be some legitimate danger for Floyd even though a good % of people believed he would win

Pac disadvantages:
1-Hatton had been dented
2-Cotto was seen as damaged after the Margarito fight; if he was still undefeated and hadn't taken damage that bout would have done more
3-Margarito-quite a few fans probably refused to buy it because of the Cheato factor

And still Floyd barely beat Pac; plus Pac put more butts in the seats to watch him live.

those are pretty bias disadvantages. hatton was pac's first big move up (not counting a total weight drained ODLH). everybody wanted to watch to see if pac could really handle fighting a non weight drained fighter at the weight. the cotto fight was another big move up which was a welterweight fight against a good solid opponent that many people really didnt think that pac could handle that much weight. and the margo fight again was a big move up in weight plus, your disadvantage might have been an advantage. a lot of people wanted to watch pac destroy cheato. so pac's advantages definitely outweigh his disadvantages for the PPV buys.

i could do the same thing with mayweather. hatton was smaller so it didnt mean a whole lot. marquez was a lot smaller and most people already knew that it was going to be an easy night. mosley was old and didnt have much left to even compete with floyd.

really, they both had about equal advantages and disadvantages. the differences between their PPV buys are too small to even matter. both sell fights really well and should get a 50/50 split if they ever fought.

I tried to be unbiased but I do see Floyd having slight advantages because of economic timing, Mexican Independence day, and promotional money spent. I will be interested how much trickles in for the Pac-Margo fight. If it is bumped up to 1.2 mil, there would only be 40k difference between them. Thats remarkable to me.

Well, since they are the 2 most marketable fighters on the planet, the numbers should be close. Imagine the numbers if they fought each other. I wonder if I can find James Scott's phone number. Maybe he can give Floyd some tips on how to arrange a fight "on the inside".