Pacquiao's earnings breach P1 billion

NEW YORK — HBO Sports reported here Friday that Manny Pacquiao’s 12th round TKO of Miguel Cotto was the top-drawing pay-per-view bout of 2009 with 1.25 million purchases worth 70 million dollars in revenue.

With his guaranteed purse of 13 million dollars from the bout and his shares from pay-per-view, Pacquiao stands to make about 22 million dollars in all.

At 47.100 pesos to the dollar at Friday’s close of trading, that is a whooping one billion, 36 million, 200 thousand pesos (P1,036,200,000) for the Filipino boxing icon.

Pacquiao, however, is not expected to enjoy all of that money. There will also be staggering amounts of money to be paid in taxes, as well as the shares of those who work for him.

As in previous bouts, his trainer Freddie Roach is expected to get 10 percent of Pacquiao’s earnings. Some 30 percent more could go to taxes.

But Pacquiao is assured of pocketing at least half of what he earned, which is to say he is going to net at least a cool half-billion pesos.

Cotto himself was expected to make some 12 million dollars in total after his share from the PPV sales also bumped up his guaranteed purse.

It was the second time a Pacquiao bout generated more than one million pay-per-view buys, further proof that the Filipino superstar, who trains in a Hollywood gym, is a box-office smash.

The Pacquiao-Cotto fight also did well at the live box office, with 15,470 tickets sold for a gate of $8.84 million at the MGM Grand hotel.

The numbers up the urgency for all parties to get together on a clash between Pacquiao and American Floyd Mayweather Jr., whose bout against Juan Manuel Marquez generated 1.05 million pay-per-view purchases in September.

While a Pacquiao-Mayweather match is what the boxing world wants to see, the latter’s insistence on getting the lion’s share of the pie is posing the greatest obstacle to the fight from happening.

Promoter Bob Arum said Pacquiao-Mayweather could fuel a resurgence of interest in the sport Stateside.

“The way I look at it now, boxing is really on a roll,” Arum said. “We would be idiots now to slow the momentum and the only way we can keep the momentum is to make this fight.”

Arum said he is ready to put the fight together and the likely division would be the 147-pound welterweight class. Pacquiao won the World Boxing Organization welterweight belt by beating Cotto at a pre-agreed weight limit of 145.

The 12th-round technical knockout by Pacquiao made him the first boxer ever to win seven world titles in as many weight divisions.

The strong numbers in the recent Pacquiao-Cotto fight in Las Vegas not only point to a resurgence in interest in boxing in the U.S. but add to the momentum for a possible fight next year between Pacquiao and Mayweather in what could be the richest ever in the sport.

     “They have to deliver,” HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg told The Associated Press. “The American public wants that fight.”

Promoters for both fighters have already said they plan to begin negotiations soon for the bout, which would likely take place in early May.

Las Vegas casinos have the inside track on landing the megafight, though there has also been talk of holding it at the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium, or even at Yankee Stadium.

One thing is certain: There is too much money at stake for either fighter to not make the fight happen. “The two best pound-for-pound fighters in the world in the same weight class in the prime of their careers,” Greenburg said. “It just doesn’t get any better than that.”

Arum, who represents Pacquiao, is expected to begin talks as early as next week with Richard Schaefer, who heads Golden Boy Promotions and will represent Mayweather in the negotiations.

Though each fighter believes he should get a bigger percentage of the purse, the total revenues will be so high that a 50-50 split may not be all that difficult to achieve.

     The potential of a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight is so big that Arum said casino magnate Steve Wynn had already spoken to him about constructing a 30,000-seat outdoor arena on what is now a vacant lot across from his two resorts to host the bout, with other casinos joining in as partners. Outdoor arenas were a staple of the big fights in Las Vegas in the 1980s, beginning with the Muhammad Ali-Larry Holmes fight at Caesars Palace.

     Greenburg said the numbers for Pacquiao-Cotto gave HBO its first back-to-back pay-per-view fights that sold more than 1 million homes since 1999, when Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield and Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad did the same thing. The biggest pay-per-view ever was the 2007 fight with De La Hoya and Mayweather that got 2.4 million buys. — AGENCE FRANCE PRESS, ASSOCIATED PRESS/JST   (FREEMAN NEWS)