The Sunday Mail
We often laugh when we hear an athlete opine on economics. We assume he got his money by default, by dint of his dominance in the arena.
As long as he’s literate enough to sign a contract, he will get a template number, negotiated by unions and lawyers and people who are just generally smarter than the player.
Laugh if you will, but Floyd Mayweather Jr is chuckling all the way to the vault, which he has stuffed with the richest paydays in the history of sports.
To trivialise Mayweather’s monetary mile markers is to ignore perhaps the greatest marketing machine in the history of athletics.
He sets records, then he smashes them.
And repeat.
Mayweather’s top guaranteed paydays heading into the May 2 showdown with Manny Pacquiao have been:
$11 million in 2007, against Ricky Hatton.
$22,5 million in 2010, against Shane Mosley.
$25 million in 2011, against Victor Ortiz.
$32 million in 2011, against Miguel Cotto.
$32 Million in 2013, against Robert Guererro.
$41,5 million in 2013, against Canelo Alvarez
It keeps going.
In 2014, Mayweather pocketed a total of $64 million for a pair of fights vs Marcos Maidana. The breakdown for just one of those fights is a science-fiction splice of Benjamins. $14 800 per second. $888 000 per minute. $2,5 million per round. $32 million for one night’s work.
And remember, this is only guaranteed money. Mayweather is likely ringing the register for more than twice these amounts when it’s all said and done. After taking his requisite taxes from the peripheral revenues of his 2013 clash with Alvarez, for instance, his aforementioned $41 million payday reportedly doubled to $80 million.
By contrast, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were guaranteed $2,5 million each for their first, epic clash in 1971. Even when accounting for inflation, the “Fight of the Century” yielded the equivalent of about $14,5 million for each boxer.
And to give you an idea of how the business model has mushroomed, the first pay-per-view bouts, like the first fight between Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran, in 1980, cost the consumer $10, whereas the 1999 fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad ran for $49,99. It has been reported that the Mayweather-Pacquiao extravaganza will fetch a record $99,95 fee.
Ray Robinson, the greatest fighter of all-time, according to The Ring magazine and most pundits, made $4 million over his career. By the time Mayweather decisioned Alvarez in 2013, his career earnings were already north of $400 million.
Indeed, Money is not just a noun with Floyd Mayweather. It’s a prefix, a concept, and emblem of commerce. Who knows exactly how a moniker is made or sticks? But it goes beyond alliteration with Mayweather, who preaches the dollar so often you half expect to see his picture on the next $100 bill. Over the last five years, Mayweather has morphed from boxing luminary to laughably rich.
“In 2007, when he formed his own company, it changed everything,” says Leonard Elllerbe, CEO of Mayweather Promotions.
“That move right there gave Floyd the ability to retire with nine figures in the bank – before he made this fight with Pacquiao.”
So while many will disagree on Mayweather’s place in the boxing archives, the abstract, mutating, top ten lists, there’s no doubt the welterweight czar is also the heavyweight champion of pay cheques.
“This was planned,” says Ellerbe. “A carefully thought-out plan by Floyd, myself and Al Haymon. Once he was able to become his own boss, we established a business model that would never be duplicated again.”
The mega-fight between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao takes an eraser to the established metrics.
In guaranteed money, Mayweather will make roughly $120 million on May 2, while Pacquiao – in his most lucrative B Side status – will inhale about $80 million. Thumb through the list of the athletes who make the most yearly cash for endorsement deals, and you’ll find a melting pot of monoliths.
According to a 2014 article in Business Insider, the list includes tennis, track, basketball, and soccer stars. Even a cricket player cracked the top-ten.
Not even Cristiano Ronaldo ($21 million), LeBron James ($42 million) and Roger Federer ($65 million) could match the caustic appeal of Mayweather, who made $102 million in 2014. Mayweather maintains the pole position on Forbes’ list of richest athletes. In a sport on relative life-support. How does he do it?
“The focus is to be a winner,” says Ellerbe. “Chase success and the money will come. The Money Team is his brand. He owns it and has all the rights to market it.”
No doubt the verbose champion ascribes to Muhammad Ali’s theory that a ticket bought or a PPV button punched, no matter your allegiance, is a victory before the bell rings. Everyone sees Ali as the avuncular face of American sports, the bridge to the turbulent times of civil rights, the man who stared Uncle Sam in the eye and the government blinked first.
But Ali was the most abhorred athlete in America while he was morphing from the adolescent poet to the throaty voice of reform. Just changing his name from Clay to Ali was enough to pop a few bigoted blood vessels. It took decades for the nation to catch up to Ali’s prescience.
Playing the bad guy goes against our natural desire to be loved. Otherwise great athletes have crumbled under the fist of vulgarity from the front row. There isn’t enough room here to list all the farmhands who thrived west of the Mississippi, then imploded under the white hot lights of Broadway. The first middle-finger shatters their Midwestern sensibilities.
“It’s a natural part of himself. Floyd has an ability to understand the marketplace, from a consumer perspective,” says Ellerbe. He executes his own vision and turns it into a reality. Most entertainers and athletes talk about a lifestyle, but he’s actually living it.”
Ellerbe would not get into the realm of endorsements, or whether Mayweather has any ancillary income other than his clothing line. But the bottom line is so robust it creates the luxury of secrecy and selective answers. No matter his economic contours, Mayweather is clearly hardwired into your main nerve, whichever way it burns. “Floyd appreciates every fan, and all the critics and haters and the naysayers,” says Ellerbe. “He appreciates them also.” One thing you can’t deny is the ardent emotions the folks feel about him. There’s no Mayweather middle ground. Either you’re swathed in “TMT” or “TBE” attire, chanting his name, record, and serial number, or you’re brooding from the periphery, waiting for that one fighter who can clam up the pound-for-pound king.
“Success is always your best revenge,” says Elllerbe. “Being the highest paid athlete in the entire world.”Indeed. Money doesn’t come with qualifiers. The bank doesn’t ask if your cheque came from those who love or loathe you. Gold mines attract all grades of the human condition. And varying levels of talent. One person on the high-end of the grid is Michael Sun, who is president of The Money Team, the company that designs and sells the Mayweather apparel. – CBSSPORTS.
