Showtime exec Stephen Espinoza stops short of predicting May-Mac breaking pay-per-view record

LAS VEGAS – Saturday’s anticipated boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor will be available to more eyeballs than any other combat sports event in history. Still, Showtime Sports executive Stephen Espinoza is unsure if the event will set the all-time pay-per-view record.

Currently, the fight between Mayweather (49-0 boxing) and Manny Pacquiao, which took place in May 2015, holds the pay-per-view record at 4.6 million buys. There’s potential for the fight with McGregor (21-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) to supersede that number, but Espinoza isn’t going to make any bold claims that it will get there.

“I am definitely on the fence,” Espinoza told reporters prior to today’s news conference in Las Vegas. “I do not believe it will just because I never believe it’s going to be that. I’m just conservative by nature. Do we have the potential? Absolutely.”

Mayweather vs. McGregor takes place T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The event airs on pay-per-view for a high-definition price tag of $99.95.

Espinoza said nearly 225 countries will have the opportunity to view the fight in some fashion, but not every region has to pay the lofty $99.95 fee, which is the same price as Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. Although Espinoza said the event will be “the most widely seen, widely distributed fight in combat sports history,” the record numbers brought in by Mayweather vs. Pacquiao are ones Espinoza believed would never be broken.

So where does Espinoza see the final tallies landing? He said that’s something he’s still struggling to figure out, but by fight night will apparently have a much more realistic figure in mind.

“Anything beyond 4.6 million (would surprise me),” Espinoza said. “In retrospect, a lot of predictions, including mine for Mayweather-Pacquiao, were in the 3 to 3.5 million, which we thought were borderline crazy. To surpass that by 30 percent is a shock. We all walked away form that event saying we would never see anything like that again in our lifetimes. To be here two years later talking maybe 5 million, maybe 4 million would be impressive. It’s crazy that we’re even talking about that record being in play.”

For more on “The Money Fight: Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor,” check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.