Ticket issues with De La Hoya-Pacquiao

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Manny Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, acknowledged Wednesday that a Filipino businessman whom he declined to identify deceived Arum by telling him he needed to buy ‘a couple hundred’ tickets for Saturday’s Pacquiao-Oscar De La Hoya fight at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The man, Arum said, had described himself as ‘someone affiliated with Manny,’ who needed the tickets to sell as part of travel packages for Filipinos who wanted to watch the fight in person.

Arum said he has since established the man’s only motive was to scalp the tickets for higher prices on the secondary market, like eBay.

‘They lied to me, and now they’re paying for it,’ Arum said. ‘The economy went so south they’re lucky to sell them at face prices, and most are going at below face. That was wrong, and they’ve complained to me about losing money. I told ‘em, ‘You win some, you lose some.’ ‘

The situation illustrates flaws in how tickets to high-profile sporting events are distributed (or not) to the public. De La Hoya-Pacquiao is boxing’s Super Bowl this year, and like the big game itself, a sizable percentage of tickets were set aside for promoters, sponsors, the fighters and others before the public ever had a chance to buy them.

The bout was declared a sellout in less than two hours, but Arum revealed Pacquiao himself bought ‘$500,000 to $600,000’ in tickets to distribute to friends, family and political figures in the Philippines, where he once unsuccessfully ran for a national office.

And tickets in all price ranges remain for sale through the MGM Grand box office after HBO’s reconfigured production control freed up ‘a couple hundred’ seats, according to an MGM spokesman.

‘People can be upset, they have the right to [swear] at [the Filipino businessman], but at least they are getting the tickets cheaper now,’ Arum said. ‘Thanks to the economy, he’s made bargains for people who want to go to this fight.’

--Lance Pugmire