HBO boxing play-by-play commentator Jim Lampley is not exactly a big fan of the date for the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fight.
In an interview with FightHub, Lampley called the placement of the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight “counter-intuitive” because pay-per-view buys would be hurt by having it take place so close to the Gennady Golovkin vs. Canelo Alvarez pay-per-view which takes place three weeks afterwards.
“If you look at the history of pay-per-view, and you’re looking for a date that previously would not have been chosen for pay-per-view,” Lampley said. “The last weekend of the summer, prior to Labor Day, is a perfect example of something that nobody would ever choose unless they had some specific reason to do so. So the only reason the Mayweather vs. McGregor event is taking place on August 26 is because Kovalev vs. Ward was this weekend and even more so because Gennady Golovkin is fighting Canelo Alvarez on September 16 on HBO pay-per-view and the people who are involved in Mayweather versus McGregor wanted to blunt that, hurt it, hurt the buy rate. By the way, I think that by choosing that path they’ve hurt the buy rate for both events because the buy rate for Mayweather-McGregor would be much larger if it were taking place in November, and buy rate for Canelo vs. Golovkin obviously would be larger if Mayweather vs. McGregor weren’t taking place on August 26.”
HBO is broadcasting the Golovkin vs. Alvarez fight, while longtime boxing rival network Showtime is handling broadcasting duties for Mayweather vs. McGregor. Lampley's comments can be seen in the video above.
