With the rumors of a Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather fight once again heating up, one of the major points of debate if it happens is going to be the finances and the splitting of shares, Sports Illustrated (SI) reported.
According to SI, a source close to Mayweather said that if the fight will happen, Mayweather is demanding a two-thirds share from the revenue.
However, during an interview with Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, said that although the specifics are yet to be established, the rumors about Mayweather's demand in shares is not accurate.
Arum told SI.com that he has been in touch with Les Moonves, the CEO of CBC, which is the parent company of Mayweather's promoter, Showtime, and based on their conversations, the news of the two-thirds share "was not accurate."
Arum's Top Rank and Showtime have been in close contact to negotiate the split after Pacquiao's welterweight title bout against Chris Algieri last month raked in disappointing pay-per-view figures.
Industry sources claim that the fight generated about 350,000 to 375,000 pay-per-view buys, but Arum said that it was a little more than 400,000, adding that despite not living up to expectations, the number of pay-per-view buys was still more than acceptable since the fight was in Macau.
"If it takes place out of the U.S., that's an automatic 40-50 percent reduction. There is no ESPN around the clock, not all the media is involved. In the U.S., that fight does 700-800,000 buys. This goes back to ancient times," Arum said, according to SI.
Meanwhile, boxing executive M. Akbar Muhammad, who is one of the principals of an Abu Dhabi-based investment group offered a total of $200 million in combined purses to earn the right to stage the possible match between Pacquiao and Mayweather in the United Arab Emirates, according to the International Business Times.
According to Arum, he is not against another overseas fight, adding that he has not yet seen the proposal.
"If Mayweather signs on, if the deal with us is OK, we have no objection to fighting in Abu Dhabi," Arum said during the SI interview. "Do I know whether it is real, if it's real money, of course not. I'm not paying any attention to it. Until they get Mayweather, there is no reason to. There is an awful lot of oil money in the Middle East, and there are people who don't care about making a profit, but do it for other reasons."
