The final tally -- or at least what will now be accepted as the number forever -- for the Pacquiao-Clottey PPV is in. The fight, which was said to be around 650-700,000 buys on pay-per-view, settled in at 700,000, according to Sports Business Daily.
That makes for $35.3 million in PPV revenue. HBO's Ross Greenburg expressed satisfaction with the numbers, saying he expected 500-600,000 buys, and that even the folks at HBO didn't think Manny Pacquiao could carry this fight as high as he did. And make no mistake, this was a one-man show in promotion. Well, Manny and to a lesser extent, the stadium.
All in all, I'd say they did well financially. Not that I'm a financial analyst or anything close, but this seems closer to the high end than the low of what really should have been expected. They'll be blown out of the water in sales by Mosley-Mayweather on May 1, and I think everyone is aware of that, and that nobody expects anything different.
If you see this as a "disappointing" number, I don't know what to tell you. There's no reason to try to "excuse" it by saying Manny's fight took the brunt of the "let's not buy until Manny-Floyd" backlash, which I don't think is real to begin with. People really love to loudly express displeasure, and especially threaten to withhold their money, but they rarely follow through on these things. The people that didn't order the show probably weren't going to to begin with, and the people that "wound up" ordering it last-minute were probably always going to order it.
700,000 people for a $50 TV Joshua Clottey fight isn't bad at all, and is a testament to where Pacquiao's at as a draw. The last time Floyd Mayweather Jr. had a genuine non-draw across the ring from him, he did 325,000 against Carlos Baldomir, who was the legit welterweight champion. I'm not saying that to knock Floyd or pump up Manny, what I'm saying is that it's a great example of the strides boxing has made in the last four years. A fight similar to this in 2006 did half of what it does now, although I'll also concede that 2010 Manny is a bigger star than 2006 Floyd was. Mayweather-Judah that year did about 350K, too. The good thing about all this is that there is no doubt that boxing is stronger and better than it was four years ago.