Sigh.

Franchise,

Theres no hope. Kill em with gifs.

wow clark is pulling his best greeeeeear impression ITT

Every casual sports fan I know knows who Floyd Mayweather is. All of them. And I don't hang out with many boxing fans at all. Mayweather has sold a bajillion PPVs and is all over the WWE, commercials, sportscenter, newspapers, etc. 90% of them know who Manny is as well. I won't comment on the Tyson/Holyfield, but your first comment may be the most wrong you've been in a long time (bc you're normally pretty sharp). This is laughably wrong.

Pacquiao was on the cover of the Asian edition of Time. I haven't been anywhere in asia in over 25 years (even then it was just the Philippines), but I'm pretty sure virtually all of asia knows Pac, or least far east Asia.

Also, when Pac fought sometime, he was on the front page of Yahoo! for a bit after (I believe after the DLH fight). Some non-boxing fans would have figured out who he was from that, even if they had no interest in the fight game.

All that really matters is that whoever knows and watches this coming fight, you're going to be entertained. I'm pretty sure of this.

Is that GIF from playing darts?

There is a category of sports fans who - unless their team is in serious contention - only get interested in the World Series, the Superbowl, and the last 2 minutes of the 7th game of the NBA finals. They used to traditionally also get interested in the really big Heavyweight Championship fights. They knew who the Heavyweight Champion was and that's about all they knew or cared about boxing. Up through Tyson-Hollyfield anyway. Ray Leonard might have been an exception.

That a welterweight fight should even generate a discussion about cracking the consciousness of this category of fans is a huge tribute to just how big this championship fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. really is. No, it will not be as big as the Superbowl. But it is going to be very very big.


PairTheBoard

Jerry Jones offered gtd $25m to stage the fight at Dallas new stadium:

I assume our random sports fan is American? If he is, I still guarantee you there's a far greater chance he knows about Manny Pacquiao than, say, Alexander Ovechkin, another example of the best athlete in his "semi-fringe" sport, who also happens to be a real foreigner plying his trade in America.

If he's not an American sports fan, this comment is just laughable...only Kimi Raikkonen grosses more in endorsements and salary when it comes to non-American pro athletes, and considering he's leaving F1 for the world rally championships (Kimi wtf, seriously) and this'll be the highest-grossing fight in history, that probably changes after March 13th.

This is sick, but I got the impression after Schaefer's shenanigans a few days ago that for whatever reason, Floyd's camp does not want the fight to take place outside of Vegas under any circumstances whatsoever.

Are you claiming that lots of people didn't watch tyson-holyfield due to not having a tv?

What you described is not a sports fan, its just a general member of the public. A sports fan will watch >>>>>>>>>10 hrs of sport a year.

Really?

I'm not disagreeing because I have no clue about it, but I just find it hard to believe that Kimi Raikkonen is the highest grossing non-American athelete. What about footballers like Christiano Ronaldo or David Beckham?

there is a huge amount of money in racing. I wouldn't doubt that there are a few other drivers between Raikkonen and say Ronaldo.

Hold this fight in Vegas.... Build a stadium right on the strip. It won't be in Dallas... No sports betting.. IMO

Id say that wee prick Lewis Hamilton is on good money

According to wiki Raikkonen was on $51m a year at Ferrari. CR9 was earning I think £150k/week at United which is ~$12.6m/yr (though at Real Madrid he's almost certainly earning more). Now I would guess CR9 earns more from image rights and merchandising and what have you but not enough to make up the gap.

Boxing needs this fight.

I went to Wild Wings to watch the Mayweather v Marquez fight; the parking lot was jammed. I walked in and everyone was dressed in Tap-Out gear. Seriously it was ridiculous. They didn't even show the Mayweather fight because of the PPV MMA event.

That said, I have two friends that love MMA and they are even excited about this bout between PBF and Manny. I know it's wishful thinking but perhaps boxing can feed off of this. What are the chances of a real good undercard? I mean someone like Paul Williams. I understand that he can draw boxing fans but "casual" sports fans probably don't know anything about him. Perhaps if a real up and comer is on the card the sport will gain some much needed interest outside of this dream match-up.

Yeah they need to do this.

If there was anyway for them to get the next Vasquez-Marquez fight on here as the main undercard fight that would go a long way to getting people back into boxing.

How about if the had an MMA fight as an undercard?

This would allow Arum, Golden Boy, and boxing to get into MMA at the highest profile event possible.

Think Fedor in the undercard, or a fight between Shamrock vs. Shamrock.

Personally, I wouldn't like an MMA fight on the undercard. The reasons are far too many to list.

I think that an MMA fight is the very last thing they would need on the undercard. This is the fight to bring boxing back into the public eye, and they'd be much better off putting on a good undercard of boxing, with at least one other world title up for grabs with recognisable fighters.

Ya...and really, it doesn't take that much money to make a good undercard w competitive fights

MMA on the undercard is a horrible idea. AFAIK, there's only ever been one large scale attempt at a mixed card and it went terribly. The MMA fans booed the boxing. The boxing fans booed the MMA. The sports don't mix well, especially considering how much longer boxing matches take.

also, LOL @ shamrock vs. shamrock being somebody's idea of a great MMA fight for the undercard. I can hardly think of a worse fight.