This is big. From Showtime:
Undefeated eight-time world champion Floyd “Money” Mayweather, boxing’s pound-for-pound king and the highest paid athlete in the world (Forbes, 2012), has entered into a groundbreaking pay-per-view deal with Showtime Networks Inc. and its parent company, CBS Corporation. Under the new deal, SHOWTIME PPV® will collaborate with CBS Corporation to comprehensively promote Mayweather’s events on the CBS Television Network and via the corporation’s expansive media platforms.
The deal—a unique revenue-sharing arrangement between SHOWTIME PPV and Mayweather—will enable him to fight up to six times over a period of 30 months, with the first mega-event taking place on May 4, 2013, when Mayweather will fight Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. More details of this upcoming event will be announced shortly.
Mayweather’s new deal is by far the biggest in the sport of boxing (specific financial details are contractually confidential). Mayweather is the PPV king and averages over 1 million PPV buys per event, which is the highest PPV buy average of any boxer in history. At this record-setting PPV performance level, if all six fights contemplated by this deal occur, it will be the richest individual athlete deal in all of sports.
How rich? Jake Emen of Yahoo! Sports estimates it likely is worth more than $50 million per fight:
Financial details of the arrangement have not been made public, but what we do know is that Mayweather will fight up to six times over the next 30 months, exclusively on Showtime Pay-Per-View. His fights will also receive extensive promotion and coverage on CBS and the various other channels and platforms under the CBS Corporation umbrella.
It’s an ambitious plan, as Mayweather’s next fight will be just his third in a three year span. However, it sounds as if Mayweather won’t have to fight that many times, but could simply seek out and fill that sort of busy schedule if he wanted to. It would certainly be great for boxing to have Mayweather being so active, and taking on the best challengers available.
What’s perhaps most remarkable about Mayweather’s status as the richest athlete is that, unlike the others who follow him at the top of the list, he does it on the strength of zero endorsement money.