It's been eight years and 10 bouts since Floyd "Money" Mayweather fought a prize fight in a ring outside of Las Vegas. The MGM Grand has become as synonymous with Mayweather as Caesar and the Pantheon or Robert Snowden and Moscow International Airport.
However, the principal owners of Brooklyn's Barclays Center believe they could snatch Mayweather away from Vegas like Showtime did, by plucking the five-division champ from HBO. After his September 14 bout against Canelo Alvarez, Mayweather has four fights left on his six fight 30-month mega-deal with Showtime and ESPN New York's Michael Woods lays out the reasons Mayweather should consider scheduling a fight in Brooklyn's pristine coliseum. Contrary to popular opinion, Barclays wasn't built just for Jay-Z.
Via ESPN NY:
A not-uncommon reaction that night: Wouldn't it make sense for Floyd, who gloves up Sept. 14 in Las Vegas against Canelo Alvarez, to do one of his fights in Brooklyn at Barclays Center?
It turns out that sentiment is shared by high-level suits at Barclays. I reached out to Barclays, and a source there told me the thunderous reaction to the sport's top draw was an immediate catalyst to explore how to get Mayweather to fight at the arena.
On fight night, Mayweather sat with Barclays Center and Nets CEO Brett Yormark, and he met the man responsible for bringing the much-buzzed-about arena to Brooklyn, Bruce Ratner.
However, the obstacles between Mayweather scrapping in Brooklyn may loom too largely for the highest-earning athlete in sports.
In the past, one hurdle to bringing Mayweather, the top earner last year in sports, has been the tax structure in New York state. Entertainers get a chunk taken from their earnings in New York, as opposed to in, say, Las Vegas, where they are not taxed. When you make around $30 million a fight, as Mayweather does, that becomes a consideration.
Somehow, that tax issue would likely have to be massaged, or worked around, for Mayweather to agree to hit Brooklyn for a bout.
Ratner and Co. want to line their pockets with the revenue from a Mayweather prize fight, but as long as Mayweather is counting his own stacks, I wouldn't count on it — unless Mayweather hires Shawn Carter as his representation.
