New-Old Option For Fight Fans: Watch Mayweather vs. Marquez In Theater

If you are wanting to check out the Floyd Mayweather/Juan Manuel Marquez bout on Sept. 19, but your significant other is acting as a roadblock, and wants to head out for a night on the town instead of hanging at home for the pay per view, you might be able to salvage a compromise. Golden Boy Promotions is hooking up with National Cinema Media and will show the Sept. 19th card in some 170 movie theaters on fight night.

Richard Schaefer hosted a conference call to announce the plan, which he hopes will bring a new bunch of fight fans to the table, particularly younger folks who are hesitant to stay in on a Saturday night. The recommended ticket price for the card, which runs at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, will be $12.50-$15. Schaefer said he wasn’t worried that the theater option would not cannibalize his PPV stats. He also said that reports that ticket sales are lagging are false, and that the card is shaping up historically to be one of the largest non-heavyweight draws, ticket-wise.

Schaefer acknowledged that he isn’t a trailblazer with this move. He recalled that the last fight to be shown on a widespread basis in movie theaters was the Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran ‘No Mas’ fight, which unfolded on Nov. 25, 1980.

“It’s a good way to bring younger people to boxing,” the Golden Boy executive said. He said that he’s been crafting this plan for several years, and hit on the idea as he was out at the movies with his kids, who expressed interest in watching boxing on a mega screen.

NOTE: The AP is reporting that on Monday Las Vegas police searched a vehicle registered to Floyd Mayweather Jr., at his home, after that vehicle was allegedly present at an attempted shooting at an skating rink. The authorities did not report that anyone was injured, but said that a vehicle, presumably the one registered to Floyd, was hit by gunfire on Sunday night between 10-11 PM.