The Floyd Mayweather Jr. versus Saul "Canelo" Alvarez bout on Saturday became the highest-grossing pay-per-view fight ever. Mayweather cemented his status as one of sports' hottest commodities by shattering the previous PPV record with $150 million in revenue, ESPN reports.
The $150 million, earned from 2.2 million PPV purchases, broke the previous PPV record - Mayweather Vs. Oscar De La Hoya in 2007 - by $14 million.
"This is what we anticipated when we formed our partnership with CBS/Showtime (in early 2013) - record-breaking results," Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe told ESPN. "We're just ecstatic and we want to thank the fans for supporting this promotion. It was a lot of hard work.
"Everybody busted their behinds but Floyd has tremendous star power and the ability to attract new fans with the support of Showtime and CBS with their plethora of platforms that we were able to utilize. It's just been remarkable. It's the best working with the best."
Once all of the PPV buys are tallied, there's a chance the Mayweather-Alvarez fight could break the record for total number of buys.
The record-breaking fight is going to make the people involved even more money. Mayweather was guaranteed $41.5 million and Alvarez was guaranteed $12 million, but both stand to make an even bigger profit now once all of the other revenues are calculated.
"This fight will gross over $200 million when you take into account all of the revenues," Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer told ESPN. "Besides pay-per-view, there's the gate, the foreign television, the sponsors, the closed circuit, the merchandise. Many of those (revenue streams) also broke records. In this fight records were broken."
Ellerbe added: "Floyd has a chance to make 100 million in this fight. Floyd Mayweather been saying it over and over for years - he's most dominant athlete in all of sports and he's getting paid accordingly."
