Manny Pacquiao triumphantly returned to the ring last November 23 with a masterful beating of Brandon Rios in Macau, China, perhaps signaling that his days as one of the best boxers in the world are not yet over and setting the stage for another year or two as a primetime fighter.
But despite Pacquiao's brilliant work in the ring, the pay-per-view (PPV) buys of the Pacquiao-Rios match was a big disappointment as HBO admitted that the fight registered around 475,000 buys, a huge drop for the Filipino boxing icon whose fight against Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez in December 2012 scored 1.15 million. Prior to his fight against Rios, Pacquiao was averaging a million PPV buys in his last nine fights.
USA Today.com is reporting that HBO president of pay-per-view Mark Taffett said that the Pacquiao-Rios bout was expected to register "in the neighborhood of 475,000 buys, and generate roughly $30 million of PPV revenue." Still, HBO considered the fight a success since it was staged in China.
"We knew there were challenges and tempered our expectations from the beginning," Taffet was quoted as saying. "It was an extraordinary effort by everyone involved, and we recognized that anything above 350,000 buys would be a success.
In comparison, Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s last fight against Canelo Alvarez in September drew 2.2 million buys, generating an all-time record of $150 million in revenue.
The HBO executive also expressed belief that Pacquio remains a big draw in boxing. "It's definitely an anomaly, attributed solely to the fight emanating from overseas," he said. "Manny Pacquiao has a number of PPV megafight opportunities ahead."
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