CEBU, Philippines - Boxing observers are one in concluding that the selection of Chris Algieri as Manny Pacquiao’s next opponent presents a huge risk on the Filipino’s pay-per-view earnings.
Being a relative unknown even in the US, Algieri faces a daunting task of selling his Nov. 22 fight with Pacquiao, and this is made doubly difficult since it will be held in Macau.
Pacquiao’s fight with Brandon Rios, which was also staged in Macau last year, sold only 450,000 PPV buys, a far cry from how the Filipino icon’s biggest fights in the US performed.
Yahoo! Sports Kevin Iole finds it hard to believe that the Algieri fight will do any better.
“It's hard to see the (Pacquiao-Algieri) fight doing more than 350,000 pay-per-view sales, unless Algieri gets out and can push the bout toward the 450,000 number that Pacquiao reached with Rios,” Iole wrote in his column.
Algieri, a native of Huntington, New York, wasn’t even under consideration for Pacquiao until he upset Ruslan Provodnikov – another potential Pacquiao foe – for the WBO light welterweight title last month.
The undefeated American earned just $100,000 against Provodnikov. In accepting the Pacquiao deal, he is set to pocket 15 times more than that, or $1.5 million – his largest payday to date.
Reporting from Macau for the South China Morning Post, writer Unus Alladin spoke to Brad Jacobs, an executive event producer for Top Rank which will promote the Pacquiao-Algieri.
Jacobs, Alladin wrote, stressed they know the risks involved in picking Algieri for Pacquiao.
“A lot of things have to be contemplated when we make an offer to a fighter. We have calculated all these risks and we feel quite comfortable with the promotability of Chris Algieri and Manny Pacquiao. If we didn't, his name would never have been brought up or put in the mix," said Jacobs.
Another boxing scribe, Gareth Davis of The Telegraph, noted that Top Rank chief Bob Arum will instead be banking on the PPV market in China to offset the potential loss the fight will suffer on the US PPV scene.
The significant time difference between Macau and the US proved to be a major factor for the low PPV numbers Pacquiao’s fight with Rios produced, and the same is expected for Pacquiao-Algieri.
But Arum remains undeterred, again citing Macau’s lower tax rates.
"Plus, if he (Pacquiao) fights in Macau he's not subject to US income taxes, which are 39.5 percent," he told Davis.— Philstar.com