The vision of scalpers encamped along the banks of the Mississippi River, sweatily and unsuccessfully hawking unsaleable premium tickets for the premium fight, is still vivid enough to frighten.
It was only seven years ago, the night of the Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson beatdown in Memphis, and those people who speculate in ticket values, in lieu of gainful employment, found themselves in the unenviable but somewhat laughable position of trying to dump big-ticket tickets along Beale Street, as if they were just another plate of barbecued ribs or fake Elvis sideburns.
The venue, The Pyramid, was cozy enough -- a real arena, hosting a real, long-anticipated fight.
And those couple thousand empty seats at opening bell were just as real.
Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, fighters on a demolition-derby track for an unsigned but near-certain showdown March 13, most likely will fight one of two places: MGM Grand Garden Arena, a 16,000-seat venue in Las Vegas which hosts fights on a regular basis; or Cowboys Stadium, which might seat 115,000-or-so fight fans with floor seating, and hadn't even hosted a football game until this autumn.
Mayweather-Pacquiao is a fight for the ages, like some of the other big-dome fights of bygone eras in America's heartland, most recently including 1970s and 1980s fights such as Muhammad Ali-Leon Spinks and Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran, both of which packed the Louisiana Superdome, a venue also briefly considered for Mayweather-Pacquiao.
The Pyramid wasn't a even big dome, though it hosted a fight of similar appeal.
And when promoters demanded $2,400 for a ringside seat, lack of demand meant the ones stuck with a huge pile of unused tickets were speculators who gambled and lost.
There's plenty of gambling and losing in Las Vegas, too, and the promise of fast money and high living long ago became the fabric holding together the biggest fights in boxing and creating an atmosphere where low-eight-figure live gates and high-eight-figure pay-per-views became possible.
The lead promoter for Mayweather-Pacquiao wants to charge $2,500, a record ticket price, for ringside seats.
In the twisted decade of escalating sports tickets and declining economic conditions, it is not an unreasonable demand for a megaevent.
But there's only one place it's certain to work.
Las Vegas needs Mayweather-Pacquiao, and the biggest fight since Leonard vs. Marvin Hagler -- and biggest welterweight fight since Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns I -- needs Las Vegas.
Promoters and HBO Sports officials are scheduled to meet with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones Thursday about the feasibility of placing the fight in his massive stadium.
Jones is bidding against the wishes of the masses.
Cowboys Stadium will allow many more people the opportunity to say they attended the biggest fight in a generation. But it will be sort of an inflated, my-ancestors-were-on-the-Mayflower claim. Yes, the possibility exists of a six-figure crowd in Dallas. It's also just as likely that 70,000 or so would spend live-ticket prices for a glorified pay-per-view, because their only real chance to see the fight would be on the massive television screen.
Several proposals for Mayweather-Pacquiao have proven unworkable already. Yankee Stadium didn't work because of taxation in New York state. The Superdome didn't work because it makes no sense to gamble an economic windfall on a devastated region. A temporary stadium on the Las Vegas Strip was a pipe dream, because you can’t sell tickets for a fight three months away without seat locations.
Placing Mayweather-Pacquiao in Las Vegas is a rare guaranteed winner in the Nevada desert, where sports business is predicated on kind of lively, two-way action that the virtual pick-'em fight offers.
Las Vegas is built for convention business. Fans want the fight there.
And the city, which has been economically ravaged itself, needs it. Casino stock prices have suffered and rooms remain unfilled. At the Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto fight last month, my seven hotel nights cost less than $200. One night was free.
Dallas is a nice place but, for Mayweather-Pacquiao, the wrong place.
Las Vegas, boxing’s bedrock, is the only choice.
E-mail David Mayo at dmayo@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/David_Mayo
Source: mlive.com
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