After months of build up, Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor finally announced that they would indeed meet in the boxing ring in Las Vegas on August 26 in a mega-fight, the likes of which have never been seen. With licenses in place and promotional issues worked out, everything was in place when the fight was announced, with one major exception.
The venue the bout was announced for, T-Mobile Arena, was already booked that day by another event in which people could watch a former star competing beyond his prime, the BIG3 championship. Ice Cube’s 3-on-3 league already had the arena on the books, but, being the newest and largest arena in Las Vegas, the Mayweather-McGregor fight was never going to be contested elsewhere. So, for the past few weeks we’ve heard that discussions were ongoing about how to remedy the situation, and on Tuesday there was finally closure on the issue.
The BIG3 will be moving its championship game, scheduled for tip off at 4:30 p.m. ET (1:30 p.m. local), to the MGM Grand Garden Arena across the street, making way for the Mayweather-McGregor bout that night to take place at T-Mobile Arena.
https://twitter.com/thebig3/status/884830842467397632
BIG3 co-founder Jeff Kwatinetz said (via the Associated Press) that the league received a “generous offer that we couldn’t refuse” from Mayweather Promotions and UFC to vacate T-Mobile, thus setting up the possible double feature for fans in Las Vegas. With there being such a large influx of people coming to Vegas for fight week, many of which won’t have tickets to the Mayweather-McGregor, it’s likely that, despite having to move venues, the Mayweather-McGregor bout will turn out to be a big win for the BIG3.
The MGM Grand Garden Arena can hold 16,800 people, which is 1,200 fewer than T-Mobile can hold for a basketball event. For a boxing event T-Mobile can hold 20,000, which is why it is so valuable to the Mayweather and McGregor camps, and they will almost certainly recoup their generous offer in the form of extra ticket sales for the highly anticipated event that should generate record gate revenues.
By solving the arena issue, all systems are now a go for Mayweather-McGregor as they get set for their first press conference in Los Angeles, and in less than two months time the two will step in the ring for a surreal event in the desert.
