Among the hoard of fans, celebrities, groupies and media converging on Miami this weekend for Super Bowl XLIV are pro boxers Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr.-“Sugar” Shane Mosley.
Now that their May 1 welterweight pay-per-view battle is set in stone, HBO Sports is wisely looking to get as much exposure for the fighters as possible by showcasing them in front of thousands of sports reporters looking for stories around pro football’s biggest event, according to HBO Sports exec Mark Taffet.
The network did the same thing with Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya in 2007 during Super Bowl XLI. The exposure the two fighters received during the crazed media atmosphere surrounding the game helped the two boxers draw a record 2.4 million PPV buys for their blockbuster fight later that year.
The May 1 Mayweather-Mosley fight completes a PPV boxing trifecta for HBO Sports in 2010 that also includes the March 13 Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey fight and the April 3 Roy Jones Jr.-Bernard Hopkins bout.
“We’re thrilled to bring to the pay-per-view industry the sport’s top four pound-for-pound fighters — Mayweather, Mosley, Pacquiao and Hopkins — in March, April and May events,” Taffet said.
“Mayweather-Mosley in particular is a showdown of superstars that fans have been talking about for years. It has all the elements of a pay-per-view mega-fight.”
