Less than 1,000 Mayweather-Pacquiao tickets expected to go on sale soon

“Where are the tickets?”

Boxing fans are continuing to ask that question as the May 2 megafight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao gets ever closer, only to not have a public sale, or any distribution for that matter, of the coveted ducats, which have a face value of $1,500 for the upper reaches of the MGM Grand Garden to $10,000 for the best ringside seats.

There may have been some clarity Tuesday afternoon when Top Rank, which promotes Pacquiao, received a manifest from the MGM Grand with its ticket allotment and seating chart showing the distribution of tickets for the fight.

“Finally!” Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said upon receiving an email from CBS chairman Les Moonves, who was passing along the information from the MGM. “This is what we’ve been waiting weeks for.”

Each fighter is receiving 30 percent of the tickets as outlined in the negotiated terms of the contract — a contract, incidentally, that has not yet been officially signed by Top Rank on behalf of Pacquiao, according to Arum. But in light of Tuesday’s news regarding the tickets, that may change.

Arum said Top Rank and Pacquiao are supposed to be included as signatories on everything and he claims the contract he has in his possession doesn’t provide for that.

“As it stands, Manny doesn’t have a say on anything,” Arum said. “We’re prepared to go to the attorney general if need be to get this resolved, but I don’t think it will come to that. At least I hope it doesn’t.”

Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe told ESPN.com that Arum knew what he was signing two months ago and he is not willing to accept the terms that were agreed upon.

But that was before Tuesday afternoon’s news that Top Rank got what it had been seeking. It may be the catalyst to trigger the public sale for the fight as well as get all the legalities settled once and for all.

It appears that less than 1,000 tickets will be available to the public, very few in the ringside area and none within the first few rows. An MGM spokesman confirmed that plans were being made for not only a public sale for inside the Grand Garden, but for seating to the closed-circuit telecast at the MGM’s properties on the Strip. The tickets, of which approximately 50,000 will be made available, are expected to cost $150 apiece.

Fans who are staying at non-MGM properties will not be able to see the fight where they are staying. The MGM has exclusivity to the signal in hotels and casinos in Clark County. It means for fans coming to town for the fight who don’t have a ticket to get inside the Grand Garden, their only other option is to purchase a CCTV seat and watch it at an MGM property.

As for the unprecedented move of selling seats to the May 1 weigh-in at the Grand Garden, ticket information is expected to be announced in the next 24 to 48 hours. The promoters agreed that for crowd control purposes that each person attending the weigh-in must have a ticket. The tickets will be $10 with all proceeds going to charity.

It has been a bizarre process, to say the least. Ellerbe, who was charged with the task of announcing when the public sale of tickets for the fight would be, has been saying for nearly a month that the sale would be “in a few days” or “at the end of the week.”

Those words have rung hollow. Meanwhile, the public gets increasing agitated with each passing day. The Nevada Athletic Commission has no jurisdiction over the terms of a contract that was negotiated by the promoters. But chairman Francisco Aguilar said Tuesday he is aware of the situation and the NAC is monitoring it.

Arum believes the fight will go on as scheduled. But he’s not thrilled about how things have gone to date.

“It’s been extremely frustrating,” Arum said. “It’s a shame it happened this way.”

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.