HBO Sports has officially announced the Floyd Mayweather vs. Juan Manuel Marquez buyrate number as 1 million, giving HBO Boxing a dominant victory in the head-to-head battle with UFC 103.
While the comparison is not entirely fair–Mayweather is one of the top two names in his sport while UFC 103 featured a low-profile headlining match between Rich Franklin and Vitor Belfort–it will undoubtedly provide artillery for the boxing loyalists in the ongoing debate over mixed martial arts.
Of course, UFC can simply point to its UFC 100 event (somewhere in the 1.7 million buys ballpark) as proof that when the sport’s marquee names enter the Octagon, UFC outdraws boxing.
HBO credited Mayweather’s celebrity profile, including appearances on “Dancing With The Stars” and WWE, for contributing to the solid buyrate.
“I’m going to say it’s unexpected, but there was always a side of me that knew it was crossing over,” said HBO’s Ross Greenburg to the Associated Press. “You have to give some credit to Juan Manuel Marquez’s Hispanic fan base, but beyond that, Floyd Mayweather has established himself as a star in the sport. All his work with ‘Dancing With the Stars’ and the WWE and (HBO reality show) ’24/7′ has established an image that Floyd projects and that people are interested in.”
Mayweather’s last fight, a headlining bout against Ricky Hatton, drew 920,000 buys, while his heavily-hyped prior encounter with Oscar de la Hoya easily crossed the 2 million buys threshold.
Though UFC 103 figures have not been formally released, most estimates suggest the boxing match should at least double (and possibly even triple) the mixed martial arts event’s number.
