Filtered By: Sports
Sports

Pacquiao-Algieri fight tickets nearly sold out


MACAU — Tickets for the Manny Pacquiao-Chris Algieri fight were selling like hotcakes.
 
And as of late Wednesday, nearly all of them were gone.
 
Top Rank founder and CEO Bob Arum said sale of tickets in the 15,000-seater Cotai Arena inside the sprawling The Venetian Macao here had already hit 95 to 96 percent with still three days left before Pacquiao battles Algieri for the World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight title on Sunday.
 
Arum, the 83-year old Harvard-educated lawyer, said they were set to dispose all the 13,500 tickets Thursday while the remaining 1,500 tickets were non-revenue, to be given to VIPs, media, friends and family members, and other prominent guests.
 
He added that media publicity and all-out promotion keyed the success of their ticket sales, which is a vast improvement compared to last year when they first promoted boxing in the Asian market. 
 
“Let me just say that we’ve learned from our mistakes last year. Every mistake we committed last year have been corrected,” Arum said. 
 
“Everything is going good. Everybody is happy with the way things have been going. The fighters are cooperating and doing their share in the publicity and promotions. I’m very pleased.“ 
 
He added that he was pleased with the turnout of the Pacquiao-Rios fight here last year and is even more satisfied with the success of the Pacquiao-Algieiri encounter.
 
“If the historic Manny Pacquiao-Brandon Rios fight we held for the first time last year turned out spectacular, this Manny Pacquiao-Chris Algieri will be much, much better.” 
 
Aside from the impressive ticket sales, Top Rank will also make some cash in pay-per-view buys, which he said is already moving to close to a million, more than double last year's figure of only 475,000 buys.
 
With that, he is eager to do more promotions in other Chinese cities like Shanghai and Beijing while developing more Asian boxers.
 
“Big-time boxing is being firmly established in China as well as in other parts of Asia,” the Hall of Fame promoter claimed. “Asia’s most famous fighter in Pacquiao will box in a big event here and the whole of Asia for the second time.” 
 
True enough, for as long as Pacquiao is dominating inside the ring, the cash register keeps on ringing for Arum. — STR/JST, GMA News
LOADING CONTENT