Pacquiao among biggest PPV draws of all time

Despite the drop in pay-per-view (PPV) buys for the recent Brandon Rios bout, Manny Pacquiao still ranks among the biggest PPV draws of all time.

According to Yahoo! Sports, Pacquiao is third in the list of all-time performers in PPV boxing with $661 million in revenue from a total of 12.2 million buys.

Included in the top five are Floyd Mayweather Jr. with $756 million (12.6 million PPV buys), Oscar dela Hoya with $696 million (14 million PPV buys), Evander Holyfield with $548 million (12.6 million PPV buys) and Mike Tyson with $545 million (12.4 million PPV buys).

Pacquiao, who has lost a couple of fights before bouncing back with a clinical victory over Rios, will be challenging Timothy Bradley for the WBO welterweight title this weekend.

From Pacquiao's “below average” PPV buy of 500,000 in the Rios bout, boxing promoter Bob Arum believes the Filipino superstar can double that in the Bradley rematch.
 
HBO Sports vice president of PPV Mark Taffet said Pacquiao’s placing in the top five list is nothing short of astonishing.
 
"Manny Pacquiao broke the mold and blazed a very unique trail for the following reasons," Taffet told Yahoo! Sports Kevin Iole. "He's not a heavyweight. He wasn't an Olympian. He's not from the very vibrant Latino or African-American demographic segments. He's not American. He's the only top non-American in that top five.”

"But what he is, is a young man from the Philippines who is as humble outside the ring as he is courageous and electrifying inside of it."

Since forcing Oscar dela Hoya to retire on his stool in 2008, Pacquiao has become a huge hit in terms of PPV numbers.

Against Dela Hoya, Pacquiao had 1.25 million PPV buys. This was followed by strong PPV numbers for his fights against Ricky Hatton (850,000), Miguel Cotto (1.25 million), Joshua Clottey (700,000), Antonio Margarito (1.15 million), Shane Mosley (1.3 million) and the third fight against Juan Manuel Marquez (1.4 million).

Pacquiao’s PPV numbers dropped to 700,000 when he fought and lost to a relatively unknown Bradley in June 2012.

It surged back up again to 1.15 million when he engaged Marquez to a thrilling battle six months later. Unfortunately in that fight, Pacquiao suffered his first stoppage loss since 2005.

In his comeback fight against Brandon Rios in Macau a year later, his PPV buys dwindled to 500,000, which Arum attributed to the fact that the bout was staged outside the US.

"The satellite people, the cable people, told us that we would lose up to 60 percent of the audience by moving it outside the United States, and we did close to 500,000 buys. It was disappointing, but you know, most of that I attribute to the fact that we had three writers over there and we didn't have ESPN there," he explained.