Oscar De La Hoya expects good PPV sales for Canelo Alvarez-Liam Smith

Golden Boy promoter Oscar De La Hoya seems to be pretty confident that Canelo Alvarez vs. Liam Smith will rake in good PPV numbers after referencing strong ticket sales as an indicator. Thus far De La Hoya has been using Manny Pacquao’s past performances at AT&T Stadium as his main barometer, as he reiterates to RingTV.com.

“We really can’t say how many pay-per-views it’s going to sell, but we’re expecting a big number,” De La Hoya said of the Sept. 17 bout for Smith’s junior middleweight title. “We strongly feel that Canelo’s star power is only growing, and as we get closer to the fight we will have a better indication. But we always gage our numbers by how many tickets we’re selling in the arena and we’re out-pacing Manny Pacquiao ticket sales, so we expect a strong number.”

This could be one of those “fake it ’til you make it” type of statements, but De La Hoya mentions over and over again that Canelo-Smith has already been outpacing Manny Pacquiao’s fights against Antonio Margarito and Joshua Clottey, which were also held at the same venue during Pacquiao’s heyday.

In this day and age of declining PPV sales, I’m personally a little skeptical of all the hoopla behind a fight that hasn’t stoked the interest of fans. But a promoter’s job is to sell the fight and feigning interest is typically a common tactic to create a perception becoming reality situation. The most likely scenario, to me, is that the live gate does pretty well but the pay-per-view underperforms.

But you fine folks are the ones who would be shelling out the money for this fight so you tell me, how many of you are planning on making this purchase? Maybe we can sell Golden Boy on some market research analytics.