Around a quarter of seats at the T-Mobile Arena remained empty for Saturday night’s fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor despite the event being almost certain to break worldwide pay-per-view TV records.
The 20,000-seat T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas did not fill to capacity, with just 14,623 tickets sold.
The bout is expected to cement its place into history as the most lucrative fight ever, surpassing the reported £480m generated by Mayweather’s win over Manny Pacquiao in 2015. Some have estimated that revenue could reach $700m.
While many suggested poor ticket sales were due to inflated prices, T-Mobile Arena general manager Dan Quinn said ahead of the fight that he was unsure as to the reasons for the lull.
“Every event is its own machine in terms of marketing and demand,” Quinn said.
“There’s just so many factors that go into it. Us in the arena world, we’re always amazed that when we book any event on the ones that are home runs right off the bat and the ones that we think are going do great, we don’t quite get there.
“There’s just so many variables in place. It’s tough to isolate any one if you have an event that doesn’t sell through all the tickets.”
Dana White, the Ultimate Fighting Champion (UFC) chief executive, said just before the event that the gate was at £54.5m, which is close to the record of £55.7m set by the Mayweather and Pacquiao fight.
The most expensive ticket still available two days before was on StubHub for $80,200 for ringside seats. The week prior to the match up, an ESPN reporter said that the most expensive ticket sold through StubHub was $55,830 for a pair of third row floor seats.
Ticket marketplace Vivid Seats said the average ticket price for Mayweather v McGregor hovered around five to eight per cent lower than the Mayweather v Pacquiao bout in 2015, which closed with an average sold ticket price of $3,859. The cheapest ticket for that fight on the secondary market fell in the $4,000 range, while the lowest price for a Mayweather v McGregor ticket was around $1,200 on Vivid Seats.