Manny Pacquiao spent $3 million on fight tickets for his legendary entourage
According to Kimberly Pierceall of Associated Press, only 500 tickets were made public, and they sold out in seconds. Ringside seats on StubHub are listed for over $100,000, with one ticket priced at $351,005. Seats in the upper levels are being sold for over $3,000, with some climbing as high as $8,000.
Despite the price, Pacquiao made sure that his massive entourage got into the building, spending $3-4 million for 900 tickets, Pierceall reports.
Pacquiao's entourage consists of, as SI's Greg Bishop describes it, "friends and relatives and friends of relatives and relatives of friends." Bishop, who took a dive into the entourage in preparation for the May 2 fight with Mayweather, says the entourage also includes nine pastors, a security team, and two people who organize the guest list that can climb into the hundreds.
Bishop reports that they often travel in a caravan, which includes a megabus with Pacquiao's face on it. Rob Peters, the head of Pacquiao's security, told Bishop that the caravan has grown from 25-30 cars to possibly as high as 100.
Here's the bus, which made its way to Las Vegas this week:
Pacquiao's entourage for this fight seems even bigger than his normal standards. In 2014, in preparation for his fight with Chris Algieri, ESPN's Dan Rafael reported that Pacquiao flew two planes with about 380 people in from the Philippines to Macau.
Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach wasn't pleased at the time, telling Rafael, "I'm not happy about that, not at all. Half the people on the planes, Manny doesn't even know their names."