De la Hoya/Pacquaio talks break down over revenue split

The boxing world’s excitement over a megafight between box office kingpin Oscar De La Hoya and “pound for pound” best in the world Manny Pacquaio was short lived. After assurances from both sides that a deal was within reach, negotiations have broken down over a dispute concerning the revenue split. Though it’s possible that the decision by De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions and Pacquaio’s representative Bob Arum of Top Rank could be yet another negotiating ploy for now each side is indicating that they’re considering the matter closed and looking to move on.

According to Arum, neither Pacquaio nor De La Hoya would budge from their proposed revenue split. De La Hoya reportedly sought a 70-30 split in his favor, while Pacquaio’s team wanted a more equitable 60-40 split. De La Hoya’s position is that he’s the biggest box office draw in the sport, and that Pacquaio should be happy with a “smaller piece of a bigger pie”. Pacquaio, meanwhile, considered such a one sided split as borderline insulting to his status as the world’s “pound for pound” best fighter. His team’s position was that with all due respect to De La Hoya as a box office draw, he can’t sell PPV’s on his own. He needs a credible opponent to maximize his earning power, as evidenced by the huge windfall from his fight against Floyd Mayweather, Jr. With Pacquaio’s popularity and status in the sport and HBO’s state of the art promotional tactics he and De La Hoya would split a payday in the nine figure range.

To the uninitiated observer, it would seem that the simple solution would be to meet halfway with a 65-35% split but, however, it’s not quite that easy. The fighters’ management teams have a complex equation to work out, weighing the potential career impact of a loss and the relative profit potential of taking a “safer” fight. From a business standpoint, this all makes perfect sense on both sides but for a boxing fan who merely wants to see the best fighters in the most competitive fights its highly frustrating. At the end of the day, these are two millionaires quibbling over percentage points from a fight on which their downside scenario is an eight figure payday.

While Pacquaio mulls over his options, Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer has indicated that the most likely course of action for his client/boss is to simply find another opponent for the same December 6 fight date. At this time, the most likely opponent for De La Hoya is Junior Middleweight Champ Sergio Mora. The fight would be held in Las Vegas, most likely at the MGM Grand Gardens Arena.

Of course in boxing, nothing is ever certain. While at the present both sides sound resigned that this opportunity has passed by, history has shown that things can change very quickly in “the sweet science”. For that reason, were Oscar De La Hoya to face off against Pacquaio on December 6th it would be far from a monumental surprise—just business as usual in the crazy world of boxing.