Floyd Mayweather's last fight was a complete disaster and nobody watched it
One source told Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports that there were only 400,000 PPV sales. Another source put the number in the 500,000-550,000 range. Either way, that's awful.
That's the lowest PPV sales total for a Mayweather fight since he faced Carlos Baldomir in 2006, a fight that generated just 325,000 PPV sales.
For comparison, Mayweather's previous fight against Manny Pacquiao drew 4.6 million PPV sales. That fight generated $410-460 million in PPV revenue alone with a $90 (standard definition) and $100 (high-definition) price tag. This fight against Berto was priced at $65 (SD) and $75 (HD) which translates to PPV revenue of just $30-40 million.
While nobody was expecting a repeat of the MayPac numbers, the numbers for Mayweather-Berto are still a big problem for everybody involved. Well, they're a problem for everybody except for Mayweather, of course.
Mayweather was guaranteed a minimum of $32 million for this fight. That's a huge pay cut from the fight against Pacquiao, where his final share was in the neighborhood of $210 million. But that also means the biggest source of revenue for the fight, the PPV sales, will almost all go to cover Mayweather's guaranteed purse. Berto will take home $4 million.
There is a real possibility that Showtime actually lost money on this fight which is just going to add to the pressure for a Mayweather-Pacquiao rematch.
Meanwhile, $32 million is nothing to scoff at. But in a sport driven by big egos, it will be interesting to see if Mayweather will be able to truly walk away when his last fight was such a dud.