Floyd Mayweather’s Money

Floyd Mayweather’s Money

During his June 12 induction speech at the International Boxing Hall of Fame, Floyd Mayweather Jr. asserted that thanks to his smart business advisors he makes three hundred million dollars a month. This is obviously an exaggeration and circumstantial evidence suggests it is a wild exaggeration.

It is fact that no boxer ever made as much money during the course of his ring career. Even adjusted for inflation, it’s not even close. According to Forbes which publishes an annual list of the world’s highest paid active athletes, Mayweather was the leading money earner for the decade 2010-2019. He topped the field in 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2018.

Mayweather’s acquisitions, according to various sources, include mansions in Beverly Hills, Las Vegas, and Miami. His luxury car collection has been valued at more than $20 million, he owns several million dollars’ worth of jewelry and his investments are said to include a $50 million stake in New York City’s fourth-tallest skyscraper, One Vanderbilt, a commercial building not quite two years old that is reportedly more than 90 percent leased.

What’s interesting is that no one has ever bothered to inquire if Mayweather’s holdings are owned outright or if he is highly leveraged. If the latter, his interest payments could exceed his monthly earnings.

In a casual conversation with a Mayweather Boxing Club insider, who shall remain anonymous, there was a hint, albeit cryptic, that Floyd’s financial footing is not rock-solid. Two recent developments lend credence to this notion.

Earlier this week, Logan Paul reiterated that Floyd still owes him a substantial amount of money, by his reckoning about two million dollars, money owed him from their 8-round exhibition in June of last year. For Mayweather, two million bucks is supposedly chump change. His debt to the older Paul brother, if the allegation is true, is now in arrears more than one full year. What’s the hold-up?

Also this week, Mayweather announced that he has more matches planned for this year beyond his previously announced exhibition in September with Japanese MMA fighter Mikuru Asakura. “I got three more exhibitions this year, could be one fight and two exhibitions,” Mayweather was quoted as saying in a widely-circulated story.

The general feeling is that if Mayweather returns to the ring for a legitimate prizefight, it will be to reprise his lucrative 2017 dance with Conor McGregor.

Floyd Mayweather Jr has fighting in his blood. It’s no surprise that he couldn’t leave the scene quietly and that at the advanced age of 45 he still feels the itch to get back in the ring. Moreover, he is still in good shape, relatively speaking, and doesn’t need to fight an opponent with even a remote chance of winning to rake in a few more dollars. However, the fact that he won’t say goodbye is fuel for the supposition that he needs to continually replenish his dwindling coffers.

One more thing: As is well known, Mayweather is a big plunger when it comes to betting on sports. An old story in London’s Daily Mail reported that he won $4.7 million betting on the NFL during the first two months of the 2014 season. When he makes a big score, he takes a screen shot of the winning ticket and posts it on social media.

Bookmakers have betting limits. This is one way that they manage their jeopardy. A prized customer can negotiate a higher limit, but a customer isn’t prized if he is a sharp bettor; quite the opposite. It’s a safe bet that if Mayweather posted all of his betting slips, winners and losers, the bottom line could be written in red ink.

Perhaps no boxer in history ever managed a career as smartly as Floyd Mayweather Jr. In an enterprise where boxers and especially men of his color were routinely denied a fair shake, he made his own rules, discomposing the historic pattern to his everlasting credit. However, we don’t consider it a given that he made so much money that he could never out-live it.

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