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Friday, September 17, 1999
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Fight fuels pay-per-view frenzy
A big response by fans wanting to watch the De La Hoya-Trinidad bout on TV stirs talk of a sales record.
By Kevin Iole
Review-Journal
The Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad welterweight championship fight is selling as fast on pay-per-view as the quickest punches of either fighter.
Boxing fans are readily anteing up the $49.95 to watch De La Hoya put his World Boxing Council title on the line Saturday against Trinidad, who will risk his International Boxing Federation title.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum was ebullient about the sales figures and said there is a chance the fight could become the No. 1 pay-per-view fight in history. TVKO executives, who are producing the event at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, weren't willing to go as far as Arum but acknowledged it is doing a smashing business.
Either way, it appears De La Hoya and Trinidad are going to make much more money than had been anticipated earlier.
Arum said De La Hoya is guaranteed $21 million and Trinidad $8.5 million, but he added that De La Hoya could make up to $7 million more and Trinidad up to $4 million more if the pay-per-view sales continue to be as strong as they have been.
The June 28, 1997, heavyweight championship bout between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson at the MGM Grand Garden Arena holds the pay-per-view record with 1.9 million buys.
Arum made the TVKO executives blanch when he said Saturday's could surpass that number.
"We've got a shot. We've got a shot," Arum said of the pay-per-view record. "Everybody is reporting the preliminary numbers are Tyson-Holyfield numbers. If the trend holds, there are more homes now, so we'll beat them."
Tyson is the undisputed pay-per-view king, with six of the top seven slots totaling 8.86 million buys. Each of the first eight fights are heavyweight bouts, with the only nonheavyweight bout the 1997 welterweight fight between De La Hoya and Pernell Whitaker at the Thomas & Mack, which had 800,000 buys and generated nearly $36 million in domestic pay-per-view revenues.
Hurricane Floyd's battering of the East Coast this week, Arum said, is likely to help pay-per-view sales for Saturday's fight. Anticipated road damage will make it difficult for people to leave their homes, and Arum said they will be more likely to buy the fight.
"All indications are that this is going to be a huge event," Arum said.
TVKO executive Mark Taffet was reluctant to predict a number other than to say it will definitely surpass De La Hoya-Whitaker for the nonheavyweight record. However, Taffet did say that sales were ahead of the pace of any bout since the 1991 Holyfield-George Foreman bout.
That fight sold 1.4 million homes, the fourth highest in history, and generated $53 million in revenue, fifth highest.
Arum in the past has been overly optimistic in his pre-fight prognostications about pay-per-view buys. Taffet and Lou DiBella, another TVKO executive, have tried to temper Arum's enthusiasm by pointing out that there is still a long way to go to get anywhere near Holyfield-Tyson II numbers.
But Taffet, who said he didn't want to predict a number of sales and then be ridiculed if the goal wasn't met, clearly is excited by the fight's ooming business.
"It's clear at this point that we're going to establish a record for a nonheavyweight fight," Taffet said. "This will undoubtedly be the highest-grossing nonheavyweight fight in history. At this point, it also looks like the fight will rank in the top 10 pay-per-view events of all-time and potentially could rank in the top five. That means it's right up there with fights like Holyfield-Foreman (1.4 million buys/$53 million revenue), Holyfield-(Lennox) Lewis (1.2 million buys/$60 million revenue), and it will exceed the (Riddick) Bowe-Holyfield trilogy."
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