14,700 tickets sold for Mayweather-Maidana fight today, says Schaefer

By Bill Phanco - 03/08/2014 - Comments

Earlier today the tickets for the May 3rd fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Marcos Maidana fight went on sale, and already 14,700 of the 16,000 tickets have been sold, according to Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer.

With Mayweather’s tickets selling out so quickly each time, he really needs to consider expanding the seating somehow for the MGM venue in order to accommodate the fans that travel far to see him. Mayweather is popular enough to sell twice as many seats as the MGM can hold, and he’s shortchanging himself by fighting in small venues.

“They went on sale today at 10:00, and 14,700 are now sold,” Schaefer said today at the Mayweather press conference. Over $12 million in the bank already, so pretty impressive.”

The interest in the Mayweather-Maidana fight tickets suggests that Mayweather was right in his decision to pick Maidana as his next opponent rather than Amir Khan. It’s difficult to picture there being this kid of a demand for tickets if Mayweather were facing Khan instead of Maidana. That fight would have been perceived as a mismatch by many fans. Besides that, it was the wrong opponent for the date that Mayweather is fighting on with him fighting on Cinco de Mayo weekend on May 3rd.

Mayweather was complimentary of Maidana, saying to Dan Rafael of ESPN “Marcos Maidana went out and displayed his skills when he fought Adrien Broner, and he’s been looking good in the last couple of years. He’s a fighter dedicated to his craft and a fighter we can’t overlook. I’ve already started training, and in the first week, I’ve pushed myself very, very hard and I can’t wait until May 3rd. This guy’s got bombs in both hands. He’s a tough, solid competitor. He’s a guy I can’t overlook.”