For those hoping that the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor pay-per-view would check in at a price tag lower than the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao PPV a couple years ago, I’ve got some bad news for you – it’s not. On Monday, it was revealed that the PPV would check in at $99.95 for the HD broadcast (and in case you’re one of the few people still ordering PPVs in SD, you’ll save $10 and pay “only” $89.95).
The @FloydMayweather @TheNotoriousMMA pay per view price will be $89.95 — same as the Pacquiao fight – $10 more for HD.
— Lance Pugmire (@pugboxing) July 10, 2017
That high price tag did nothing to dissuade buyers, though – Mayweather-Pacquiao scored a record amount of PPV buys, more than doubling the previous record and bringing in $400 million just in America.
That fight also saw promoters go after bars, illegal streams, and Periscope streamers in an effort to limit piracy and maximize profits. One would expect the promoters of the Mayweather-McGregor fight to do the same thing.
In some news unrelated to the PPV itself, Fox Sports announced that it would be airing the weigh-ins for the fight (on FS1) on August 25th, a prefight show and the PPV prelims (on the Fox broadcast network) on August 26th, and a postfight show (on FS1).
Fight day coverage begins Saturday, August 26 on the FOX broadcast network and FOX Deportes at 6:00 PM ET with a one-hour PREFIGHT SHOW. Then, at 7:00 PM ET action moves into the ring with two hours of preliminary boxing bouts live on FOX and FOX Deportes, with the SHOWTIME PPV telecast commencing at 9:00 PM ET. The evening wraps up immediately following the main event with the FS1 and FOX Deportes POSTFIGHT SHOW. Coverage kicks off on Friday, Aug. 25 with the WEIGH-IN SHOW live on FS1 and FOX Deportes at 7:00 PM ET.
Fox will also air the four Mayweather-McGregor press conferences this week from Los Angeles (Tuesday), Toronto (Wednesday), New York (Thursday), and London (Friday) on FS2 (IT DOES EXIST!), with replays airing later in the evening on FS1.
Whew. For a fight that’s utterly absurd, the media coverage is going to be quite over the top – and we’re still just under seven weeks away.
I’ll be curious to see just what kind of PPV numbers this ends up drawing, and how much viewership Fox’s coverage of the fight brings them. Given that McGregor, who has done extraordinarily well for Fox when featured, is involved, I don’t think we can begrudge Fox for giving this fight some extra coverage.
