Mayweather vs McGregor: Ellerbe says live gate on pace for new record

Leonard Ellerbe says to forget reports of slow sales, Mayweather-McGregor is going to make the money.

Leonard Ellerbe of Mayweather Promotions said on Thursday at Floyd Mayweather’s media workout that despite previous reports of tickets being slow to move for the August 26 fight between Floyd and Conor McGregor, they’re on pace to set a new gate record for boxing:

"Right now, we have over $60 million in the box office. And you tell me, what part of that remotely looks like ticket sales are slow. This isn't a damn Rolling Stones concert. That's the only thing that sells out in seconds. When you are talking about tickets going from $500 to $10,000, that's an expensive ticket. So you have every CEO from every major company. You know, guys, it takes time to plan and get it together."

The current record is $72.6 million for Mayweather’s 2015 fight with Manny Pacquiao at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. This fight is also taking place in Vegas, at the newer and larger T-Mobile Arena.

Ellerbe also noted that the current box office is “more than double” what the sales have been for Canelo Alvarez vs Gennady Golovkin on September 16 at T-Mobile Arena. That fight has much cheaper tickets, of course, and wouldn’t have sold what this one is selling if they’d tried to go this expensive, either. It just doesn’t have that extra weird heat this matchup does that entices more casual fans or even non-fans looking to attend an “event experience” in Las Vegas, for something that may well never happen again. There will always be big boxing matchups. This is a whole other thing.