While recent reports have indicated that ticket sales for the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor bout are going well, there is evidence to the contrary. As ESPN’s Darren Rovell noted, face value tickets to the Mayweather-McGregor bout are going for $2,500.
While that is a great deal of money, it’s the cheapest the seats have been for a long time.
For the first time since the first day of sales, Ticketmaster is selling tickets to Mayweather-McGregor for under $3,500. pic.twitter.com/YHildD9ZSn
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 12, 2017
As of this writing, verified seats could be had on SeatGeek for $2,000 per ticket.
Ticket prices on both the primary and secondary markets would not be dropping so much if sales were going so well. That’s not how things work.
Obviously, there are different factors at play here. The fight has earned a great deal of scorn as nothing more than a farce. Even if Mayweather’s best days as a fighter are behind him, there’s still very little evidence to suggest that McGregor — not a boxer by trade — will give him any competition.
Another factor is the way that the fight has been marketed.
For decades, big-time bouts between a black fighter and a white fighter have prominently played the race angle up. This one has done the same. The difference is that, in this case, it’s obviously not selling as well. Maybe, even with plenty of recent controversies, it just doesn’t sell that well anymore in general.
Maybe if you’re going to sell a fight, at least one of the guys needs to come of as likable and someone to cheer for. Both Mayweather and McGregor have failed miserably in that regard.
Whatever the cause is, the fight has clearly not sold as it was expected to. If that continues to happen, expect prices to drop even more.