Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s Sept. 12 fight vs. Andre Berto generated very little buzz during its buildup, and tickets were reportedly difficult to sell. There had been initial speculation that it might take place on CBS, but interest further waned when it was announced it would be a $75 pay-per-view. The buy numbers are in, and it looks like Showtime may have taken a bath on this dud.
Mayweather vs. Berto only sold about 400,000 units per Yahoo, while another source told them the figure was closer to 500,000 to 550,000. That is an incredibly steep decline from Mayweather's May 2 fight vs. Manny Pacquiao, which sold 4.4 million units at $100 a pop for high definition.
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Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe is trying to spin the disappointing numbers as something other than a negative, by reminding people that Mayweather's ability to sell pay-per-views is unmatched, even when the sales underwhelm.
"At the end of the day, given what we've accomplished, we're essentially competing against ourselves with this," Ellerbe said. "There's no one else at this level, so we're just competing against ourselves."
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Showtime executive Stephen Espinoza acknowledged that Mayweather vs. Berto never had a chance to even approach the success of Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. He also didn't deny that Berto was not a compelling opponent for Mayweather. Berto was 30-3 entering the fight; although he had 23 knockouts to his credit, he'd lost three of his last six fights, two of which were against opponents Mayweather has already beaten.
"To a large extent, anything we did coming off of that massive May 2 event was going to feel like a bit of a letdown," Espinoza told Yahoo Sports. "We didn't have available a really compelling list of available opponents. There's been a lot of speculation about a lot of things, but when you got down to it, there wasn't really a long list of available guys and none of them were slam dunk established stories or really compelling storylines."
The fight was billed as the last fight of Mayweather's career. With his unanimous decision win, he improved to 49-0 (26 KO) and tied Rocky Marciano's record when he retired as heavyweight champion. Few expect Mayweather to actually stay retired, however. The MGM Grand will open a new arena in 2016, and few would be surprised if Mayweather seeks his 50th victory as a way to break it in.
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