May 2, 2015 5 min read

Manny Pacquaio’s shorts were worth $2.3 million.

That’s how much advertisers paid to have their names on them for his fight with Floyd Mayweather.

By the time you read this, Floyd Mayweather might have upped his boxing record to 48-0. It’s the richest fight in history and, for people who are old enough to remember when boxing still mattered, it brings back memories of previous Fights of the Century such as Ali-Frazier, Ali-Foreman, Leonard-Duran and Leonard-Hagler.

I’ve covered World Series, Super Bowls, College Football National Championships and Stanley Cup Finals and not one of those events created any more excitement for me than the closed circuit telecasts of those fights.

If you don’t remember closed circuit fights, those were the big fights that were shown on large screens in theatres around the country. They weren’t available on cable and, even though it was just a screen in a theatre, they had the electric feel of a live event.

I stopped caring about boxing a long time ago and paid as little attention to Mayweather-Pacquiao as possible. What’s more interesting to me than the fight is the hypocrisy surrounding it.

Do you think Mayweather would have a $140 million payday if America had seen a Ray Rice-like video of him slamming a woman with a car door, throwing her into the car and repeatedly punching her?

That’s what Mayweather eventually pled guilty to in October of 2001. It’s one of seven assaults against five women that got him either arrested or cited.

Showtime (owned by CBS) has no trouble selling the pay-per-view subscriptions and the MGM Grand casino is happy to collect the $74 million live gate.

Because of the Ray Rice video that surfaced late last summer, domestic violence has been discussed almost as much as anything that has happened on a field, court or rink in the last several months.

I’m not sure if anybody really knows what or where boxing’s governing body is, but it’s obvious that, whoever is in charge, was never going to do the boxing equivalent of what the NFL did to Rice and punish Mayweather with a suspension.

Did I mention that advertisers are paying $2.3 million to get their names on Manny Pacquiao’s shorts?

Why Mayweather is on the street and has only spent several months in prison is another story.

Tickets were going for as much as $140,000 apiece.

Some of those seats were bound to be filled with women, many of whom may be celebrities, who have taken an opportunity to show how concerned they are, by self-righteously coming out publicly against domestic abuse.

What about the pretty ring girls who will parade around carrying signs in between the rounds?

Would a video of Mayweather’s biggest out-of-the ring hits have made them ashamed to contribute to the show?

Mayweather likes to tell people to back off on the domestic abuse cases because nobody has produced a video of his abuse.

What about the ESPN female reporters who have been covering the buildup to the fight? How would they have felt about helping to enrich Ray Rice nine months ago?

If you pay $140,000 for a seat, you’re probably not going to have a problem with buying an $88 dollar leather cap with the letters TMT (The Money Team) on it. That’s one of Mayweather’s 16 trademarks. He has 129 more pending.

I seem to remember the people lining up for hours to get full refunds from the Ravens for their Ray Rice jerseys last year.

And that was because of one punch.

Mayweather’s reputation for not having a lot of patience with his women didn’t scare Nicole Craig. She’s in charge of marketing his merchandise, including the white T-shirt with “Future Mrs. Mayweather” scripted in pink on the front for only $20.95.

I looked but couldn’t find any pink protective head gear.

• When did the Red Carpet become a part of sports coverage?

The NHL saw the need for one at its awards show a few years ago and viewers were subjected to glamorous women sportscasters asking arriving players and their wives, “Who are you wearing?”

I tuned to the NFL’s draft coverage Thursday night around 7:45, hoping to get some pre-draft analysis. What I got was a really pretty sportscaster dressed in what looked like a really expensive dress greeting arrivals on the Gold Carpet.

Click.

I left and never tuned in again.

It’s enough to make you long for the days of a bunch of guys sitting around in a room in New York smoking cigars.

The sight of grown men sitting in an auditorium dressed in replica jerseys wildly cheering their team’s selection is almost enough to make you long for the days when you waited to read about the picks in the newspaper the next day.

But who can blame the two networks, ESPN and NFL Network? Thursday night’s draft coverage had a bigger audience than the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

• ESPN’s Mel Kiper correctly predicted six out of 32 first-round selections. Take away the first two no-brainers and he was 4 for 30. Keep in mind this is a guy who has devoted his life to the NFL Draft for more than 30 years.

He could have studied the list of top prospects 15 minutes before air time and not done any worse. Mel will be back next year, but don’t expect him to talk much about his 2015 results.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.