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Las Vegas - Ringside tickets for the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are being advertised for $100 000 (R1.2 million) and more.
Tickets for the May 2 bout finally hit the market on Thursday and prices on Ticketmaster ranged between $1 500 to $7 500 – and were snapped up in a matter of seconds.
Within minutes of the tickets going public, the market place shifted to resale sites that posted knockout prices of $100 000 and more for ringside seats, putting them beyond the reach of everyone but the rich and famous.
Another secondary site, Ticketliguidator.com, was offering floor seats for $55 000.
So unless your name is Warren Buffet or Madonna you will probably watch the fight in Las Vegas on television.
After weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiations between the camps and much speculation, the tickets went on sale on Thursday and, as expected, they were not cheap.
The MGM Grand is expected to pack in close to 16 500 spectators for the fight but it was estimated that only 500 to 1 000 tickets would be available the public. The rest were earmarked for the fighters, the casino, sponsors and promoters.
"We haven't ever seen this," StubHub spokesman Cameron Papp said. “That the tickets are going on sale with the fight only nine days away is unique.
“The lower inventory to the public is reflected in the prices,” he said.
Stubhub, owned by eBay and the largest online ticket resale site in the United States, expects to see plenty of activity around the bout, leading right up to May 2.
Normally the market around a sporting event will see a drop in prices during the lead-up but Papp does not believe this will be the case for the bout between Mayweather and Pacquiao.
"I would expect prices to stay where they are or go up," said Papp, adding that sellers had to show proof of ticket purchases before they were listed on StubHub.
"They are going fast and when the inventory gets lower, the prices are going to rise. Clearly people were waiting for this one to go on sale and watching the site. We've never seen prices so high."
The welterweight showdown between the undefeated Mayweather and the aggressive Pacquiao, the two best fighters of their generation, is expected to become the top-grossing prize fight of all time, pulling in close to $500 million in pay-per-view.
For those wanting to get in on the Las Vegas buzz many casinos will hold closed-circuit viewing parties and part of that experience will also include high-end tickets that will run in the $150 range.
