Like it or not, the Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor circus proves that money talks

Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, and mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor exchange words during a news conference. Photo / AP

By Jeff Powell of the Daily Mail

First the good news from Las Vegas: Tickets for when the Mayweather-McGregor circus comes to town are still available at face value on the official website.

The bad news: Prices range from £1,596.49 for high up in the back row of the gods at the T-Mobile Arena to £6,155.95 for the inner ringside.

The breaking news: Despite rumours of thousands of tickets remaining unsold there were approximately 800 left at the time of writing this Monday afternoon, with more than 500 potential buyers queuing on line.

The worst news: Once those seats have gone prices on the black market - or secondary sale as it is more politely entitled in the US - are likely to escalate from their current scale of £2,500 up to, wait for it... £115,000 ($NZD 202,000).

Which is why Conor McGregor's UFC boss Dana White was sounding off about exploitation when it was mistakenly reported that the Arena sold out within hours of the box office opening a week ago.

To put the sales into perspective, 800 tickets equates to four per cent of capacity. That means that despite the exorbitant pricing, 19,200 of the 20,000 places have gone already.

So like it or not, speculation that there could be a financial shortfall in this hybrid fight between Money Mayweather the boxing legend and Notorious McGregor the mixed martial arts star, is currently unfounded.

August 26 will see the shattering of the $50million-plus record for gate revenue for a boxing match, set when Mayweather fought Manny Pacquiao two years ago.

With pay-per-view subscriptions in the US set at five cents short of $100, cinemas across America set to charge sixty bucks a head for the closed-circuit transmission and foreign broadcasting rights fees set high, the first billion-dollar fight is on track.

So like them or not, Mayweather's projected $200m purse and McGregor's probable $100m seem assured.

All of which begs the question the world is reluctant to ask: Once this contrived cross-match is done and dusted, will Mayweather go back into retirement and McGregor return to the UFC? Or will there be a rematch? Perhaps under MMA rules?

That, one fancies, will depend on the financial projections. As Mr Mayweather never fails to remind us, money talks.