It's big enough that nearly 13,000 of the 16,000-plus tickets have already been reserved in advance of the tickets going on sale to the general public. ESPN's Dan Rafael reports that "casinos, sponsors, HBO, Golden Boy and the Mayweather camp" have caused Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer to be "inundated with ticket requests" by a variety of boxing insiders.
If an ordinary Joe like you or me wants to get tickets, we're looking at prices of $2,000, $1,500, $1,000, $750, $350 and $150 for nosebleed seats at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 5th. They go on sale January 27th at 10 a.m. at the MGM Grand box office, at www.mgmgrand.com, and through Ticketmaster (you'll probably have better luck getting through online at the venue's website). The cheaper tickets are limited to two per person.
When the fight sells out, it will KO the previous American record for the live gate at a boxing event--bringing in 19.3 million as compared to the previous 16.8 million dollar gate for Lennox Lewis vs. Evander Holyfield II.
It will be interesting to see if it breaks the previous record for pay-per-view buys. De La Hoya vs. Trinidad sold 1.4 million in 1999. More people have the capability to purchase pay-per-view events in their homes now, but I don't believe Mayweather is as big of a name as Felix Trinidad for most boxing fans.