What if Mayweather/Pacquiao was shown for free on HBO. Would it do more views then Mayweather/Marquez and Cotto/Pacquiao? Is it possible to rake in more money somehow through ratings or is the real money solely based on buying it on pay per view? I think the only way to get boxing back on the map is to show a network, like NBC that at least for a night, a boxing fight can put on numbers larger than a night of some average tv show in prime time. I dont know all the details of how it works but obviously a mayweahter/pacquiao fight is set to make ALOT of money, period. I think pay per view may actually kill the real thing us boxing fans wanna see, and thats another boost in popularity for boxing.
If the fight is promoted as a big event, shown on prime time TV, I think it would do over 50mil viewers easy...but if their not paying, they can only rely on advertisements between fights to generate the money, wont be anywhere close to 160mil gross from ppv i think.
in a recent ring magazine, it had a flashback to 1978 with Ali/Spinks II. The fight was shown on network TV and drew 80,000,000 viewers. Don't see why it cannot happen again. It would do wonders for the sport.
