Tickets to the Floyd Mayweather Jr-Manny Pacquiao fight finally went on sale yesterday to the public, little more than a week before the bout.
Do not expect to snag one at a starting retail price of US$1,500, though. There will only be 500 tickets sold to the general public for boxing’s richest fight ever, beginning at 3pm.
The ticket sale — announced on Wednesday night — comes after the rival camps settled final details on the fight contract and how tickets would be allotted.
A conference call earlier in the day between the rival camps — with CBS chief executive Les Moonves serving as a mediator — resolved the dispute over millions of dollars in tickets, Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum said.
The battle held up the sale of the 500 tickets to the general public and the release of thousands of others to ticket brokers and others.
Most of the tickets to the 16,500-seat MGM Grand Garden Arena are controlled by the two fight camps, with the remainder reserved by the MGM for its own customers. They had been unavailable, though, because the two sides were feuding over who got what tickets and where they were located.
At stake were millions of dollars because the tickets could be sold by the two camps to ticket brokers for far more than retail price.
“We worked it out orally this morning,” Arum said. “Once the actual contracts are signed with the changes everyone agreed to, we can move forward.”
Tickets have been an issue since the fight was announced because the MGM’s arena is far too small to meet the demand for seats at the megafight. It was not until the two fighters met last month at a Los Angeles press conference formally announcing the fight that the price of the tickets was announced at between US$1,500 and US$7,500.
Even that has changed, though, with the floor seats now retailing for US$10,000. Two of those seats were listed on the Seatgeek.com Web site on Wednesday for a total of US$100,983, including a US$15 delivery charge.
Though full details of the public ticket sale were not announced, there reportedly will be 100 tickets sold in each of five price categories, not including the US$10,000 floor seats. The MGM also announced the sale of thousands of closed circuit seats at its various properties at US$150 apiece.
During a conference call on Wednesday with reporters, Mayweather said that he had not been involved in the process.
“I don’t worry about tickets,” Mayweather said. “I worry about the guy in front of me, which is going to be Manny Pacquiao. That’s my whole focus.”
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