What to make of the hype surrounding the mega fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor?
They step into the ring at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena Saturday with question marks surrounding the legitimacy of the fight; one of boxing’s all time greats against an amateur and a novice without a professional bout to his name.
One bookmaker is so sure of a Mayweather victory that it has already paid out to customers who had bet on the US boxer.
Despite the apparent mismatch and disparity in boxing talent, the fight continues to generate worldwide interest. So much so, some pay-per-view packages in the US are being sold for upwards of $100.
‘More international crowd’
But the picture around ticket sales is more confusing.
Tickets are still available for the fight on the T-Mobile Arena website — the cheapest is priced at $1,722 — though Friday’s weigh-in is sold out.
Despite the T-Mobile Arena hosting the event, the ticketing section on its official website links out to a secondary seller where prices are up to 10 times the original value — $107,000 for a ringside seat.
However, earlier this month the Los Angeles Times — citing officials connected to the public sale of tickets — said 3,000 seats were still available for sale, with another 4,000 tickets available on the secondary market.
The T-Mobile Arena was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNN. Neither was MGM Resorts international and AEG Worldwide. The T-Mobile Arena is a joint venture between AEG and MGM Resorts.
Meanwhile, tickets on resale websites StubHub and Ticketbis are available for $1,100, though the former company told CNN that Saturday’s bout wasn’t proving as popular as Mayweather’s fight against Manny Pacquiao in May 2015.
“Mayweather vs. McGregor is so far the second best-selling fight ever on StubHub, after Mayweather vs. Pacquiao,” a StubHub spokesperson told CNN.
“To date, ticket sales figures show that sales for Mayweather vs. Pacquiao outsell Mayweather vs. McGregor by over 10%.
“However, Mayweather vs. McGregor is attracting a slightly more international crowd, with 14% of sales coming from outside the US, compared to 12% for Mayweather vs. Pacquiao.”
With just a few days until the fight, it would appear tickets for Saturday’s fight are not only selling more slowly, they are also not as expensive as the bout between Mayweather and Pacquiao.
So far, the most expensive ticket sold on StubHub for Saturday’s bout is $24,000, while the priciest ticket for Mayweather ‘s fight against Pacquiao went for $35,000.
At face value, the cheapest ticket for Saturday’s bout was $500 and the most expensive, for a ringside seat, was $10,000.
StubHub say the average ticket price sold for Mayweather vs. McGregor on its website is $3,394.
