Mayweather v Pacquiao: Why richest fight may not revive boxing

More than the interests of the sport, this is about what is good for the two fighters, their promoters, joint host broadcasters HBO and Showtime, the MGM hotel and casino, secondary ticket selling agencies, and of course the city of Las Vegas – where room rates have hit record highs.

It all seems a far cry from 1995 when 28 million Americans tuned in to see Mike Tyson beat Buster Mathis on Fox. Or 1985 when 19 million TV viewers across Britain watched Barry McGuigan become world champion.

I visited McGuigan last week at the gym he runs with his son in Battersea. He would not begrudge the fighters maximising the money they could make, and pointed to the dangers involved.

Like Arum, he insisted the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was a huge shot in the arm for a sport that has seen its popularity fade in recent years. While acknowledging the rampant commercialism behind the event, he was delighted that boxing was back in the headlines, and providing 2015 with arguably its biggest sporting moment.

There are indeed causes for some optimism. Al Haymon – Mayweather’s adviser – has recently invested $20m establishing the Premier Boxing Championship in the US. In partnership with NBC, the PBC series is an attempt to return boxing to the mainstream – staging fights on network television with the aim of building a new audience.

McGuigan himself is doing his bit to return the sport to terrestrial screens, external on this side of the Atlantic, having struck a deal with ITV to televise his fighter Carl Frampton’s bout with Chris Avalos back in February, the channel’s first world title fight since 2008. The free-to-air show attracted an audience of almost two million.

The fact 80,000 people turned up at Wembley last June to watch Carl Froch fight George Groves is further encouragement.