HBO releases official PPV numbers: 1.25 million

by SC on Dec 10, 2008 11:27 PM EST in News Analysis Comment 4 comments

Not bad. Not bad at all. This is only the fourth time in history that a non-heavyweight fight has done a million buys on pay-per-view. The others are also all Oscar (Mayweather, Trinidad, Hopkins), which probably went without saying.

It's basically exactly what I expected. It's not the 1.5 that Kevin Iole said they were tracking, but 1.25 million is still a ton of people, and makes it easily the #1 pay-per-view of the year for not just boxing, but all combat sports.

Here are the boxing numbers for 2008:

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Main Event	Date	Distributor	Buys*
Roy Jones Jr. v. Felix Trinidad	01-19	HBO	500,000
Kelly Pavlik v. Jermain Taylor II	02-16	HBO	250,000
Juan Manuel Marquez v. Manny Pacquiao II	03-15	HBO	400,000
Manny Pacquiao v. David Diaz	06-28	HBO	200,000
Miguel Cotto v. Antonio Margarito	07-26	HBO	450,000
Juan Manuel Marquez v. Joel Casamayor	09-13	Golden Boy	100,000
Kelly Pavlik v. Bernard Hopkins	10-18	HBO	195,000
Joe Calzaghe v. Roy Jones Jr.	11-08	HBO	225,000
Oscar de la Hoya v. Manny Pacquiao	12-06	HBO	1,250,000

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Oscar-Manny just destroyed everything else. Here are a few things we learned this, year in my view:

Joe Calzaghe, great as he is, is not a draw in the States. Period.
Manny Pacquiao, great as he is, can't sell a mismatch like the one with Diaz.
Kelly Pavlik is not yet a PPV draw. The Hopkins fight was disappointing, but B-Hop has never been a big drawing card, either. The rematch with Taylor, I'm sure they expected more than 250K for a rematch of one of the best and most talked-about fights of 2007.
If you make a great fight (Cotto-Margarito, Marquez-Pacquiao II), the fans will buy it.
People had one last gasp of love for Tito Trinidad.

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I gotta think they need to put Kelly on regular HBO a few more times before he can start drawing better numbers. He really wasn’t known beyond die-hards until after the first Taylor fight. Then they went straight to PPV, minus the Lockett execution which did little to build a fanbase.

These things take time but this is a PPV-happy era. Maybe the economy helps Kelly build a larger base for when things turn around.

by kp the ghost on Dec 11, 2008 12:37 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

It may seem like nothing

But those are an awful amount of PPV stack ups. $500 worth of PPV amazingly sad.

Watching Manny Pacquiao fight live--great...
Watching Manny Pacquiao shadow boxing on the roof of an abandoned building--priceless

by CRAZEDANG1280 on Dec 11, 2008 9:30 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

"If you make a great fight (Cotto-Margarito, Marquez-Pacquiao II), the fans will buy it."

Also, if you stacked the card with two main events, more fans would buy it. C’mon boxing! Catch up already!

by E-ROC on Dec 11, 2008 11:52 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Odd to see that RJJ-Tito did better than RJJ-Joe………..really speeks to Joe’s drawing power…..hopefully next year we can see some more PPV’s that have the right to expect a 1 million buys

Bruce Seldon > Ali

by rjhabeeb on Dec 13, 2008 6:39 PM EST reply actions 0 recs