Thursday, September 18, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Title fight proves pay-per-view hit

Mosley-De La Hoya could clear 1 million buys

By KEVIN IOLE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya fought for the super welterweight title on Saturday, but proved they are heavyweights at the pay-per-view box office.

Their fight Saturday at the MGM Grand, which Mosley won by unanimous decision, was purchased in 975,000 homes, said Mark Taffet, vice president of HBO Pay-Per-View. Because cable systems across the country are still tallying purchases off their new digital cable outlets, Taffet said the final figure probably will exceed 1 million.

The fight also generated $50.2 million in pay-per-view revenue. In terms of buys and revenue, it is the second biggest nonheavyweight pay-per-view bout, trailing only De La Hoya's 1999 match with Felix Trinidad Jr., a bout bought in 1.4 million homes to generate $71 million in revenue.

Based on the sales, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said Mosley will make between $6.5 million and $7 million, and De La Hoya will make more than $20 million.

Taffet said De La Hoya is clearly boxing's top drawing card, but that Mosley's profile has risen considerably from its position in 2000, when he scored a split decision over De La Hoya in Los Angeles. That fight did a less-than-expected 585,000 buys.

"The public's awareness of Shane was much greater," Taffet said. "Going into this fight, he had a win over Oscar, which he didn't have before, and he had fought a number of big fights on HBO. That, plus Oscar's fight with Fernando Vargas (in 2002), took this fight to a higher plateau."

Arum said sales in the West were considerably stronger than expected. The fight didn't do as well as anticipated in the East and the Northeast, but it outsold the De La Hoya-Vargas bout in the West. That fight sold 935,000.

In Clark County, the fight did 12,000 sales, even though Cox Communications forced subscribers to switch to digital cable to buy the fight, prompting potential customers to label it blackmail. Arum said the De La Hoya-Vargas fight sold about 7,400 pay-per-view subscriptions in Clark County.

"In the Vargas fight, you had two Hispanics, and with all the Hispanics in the West, we figured if we even came close to the Vargas figures with this fight, we would have been doing terrific, because we thought this fight would surpass Vargas in the East," Arum said. "That proved not to be the case, but the West was a home run for us."

Arum said he budgeted for about 550,000 to 600,000 buys.

"When we first launched it, I would have sold it on the spot for 700,000 buys," Arum said. "As it went on, it became clear we had a hot ticket, but no one ever anticipated this when we started."