Somehow, the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Conor McGregor “superfight” still hasn’t happened. In fact, it’s still almost a month away, despite what’s already been an eventful promotional tour.
If you are excited for the fight, though, and would like to see it live in Las Vegas, good news! There are still plenty of tickets left! Of course, the bad news is why those tickets still remain; it’ll cost you $3,500 to get in the door.
A check online Saturday revealed hundreds of seats still available from Ticketmaster at the T-Mobile Arena for the Aug. 26 fight. There are so many open seats that fans with enough room left on their credit cards can buy six tickets together in 162 different spots throughout the arena.
That might be because of the astronomical prices set by promoters — the cheapest tickets still available on Ticketmaster have a face value of $3,500. Or maybe fans are just waiting for the right time to buy, hoping the price will go down.
Tickets just went on sale earlier in the week, but that hasn’t provided the spark of interest some may have hoped for. But, then again, this is almost an absurd level of money to put up just to say you were in the building:
Prices start at $3,500 — plus another $300 or so for buyer fees — and climb to $10,000 near the ring. There are “platinum” seats that go for as much as $14,995.
The resale market is nearly as pricey. At Seatgeek.com the get-in price is around $2,000 — for one of the few seats that originally sold at $500 — and the median listing price is about $7,000.
You can just watch it on pay-per-view for $100, or get some guys together and split it, or go to a bar, or hell, just try to stream it from some less-than-reputable sites. (Or just watch on Periscope, a choice that will likely leave you angry at how someone refuses to keep their phone pointed at their tv in their own living room in order to best facilitate your viewing of a fight you didn’t pay for. It’s a hell of an experience.)
Frankly, the bigger story should probably be that any tickets sold at all; who are the high rollers willing to shell out these prices? (It might indeed be literal high rollers, given the locale.)
The fight will surely sell out, even if organizers have to reduce prices late. That doesn’t sound like something they want to do, though, as they’re aiming for a record take:
“We’re very excited and very happy with ticket sales so far,” Ellerbe told The Associated Press. “We’re well on our way to smashing our own record which transcended the sport.”
That record was a $72,198,500 gate set by Mayweather in his 2015 fight with Manny Pacquiao. That live gate was more than three times bigger than any previous boxing gate.
Hey, this entire thing is essentially a physical manifestation of greed and ego, so sure, why not?
[ESPN/AP]
