The available PPV audience in 1975 would have been very limited, M. Severely limited. The available PPV audience would have been in the thousands in 1975, not millions. According to Mike Trainer in 1981 there were only 800k to 1 million homes equipped to handle PPV in North America. In the late 80's it was still less than 10 million according to the PPV reports on the Leonard-Lalonde fight (apx 650k buys out of 9 million available homes according to sources). It wasn't until the 1990's when PPV started exceeding closed circuit showings as the main source of revenue for the boxers and promoters. But even then PPV availability was quite limited compared to what it is today, and also required much more effort than to simply sit on a couch and press a button. In the 90's a lot of people had to travel down to their local cable outlet, rent a device that they attached to the back of your cable box in order to descramble the signal, and then drive back to their cable outlet the next day to return it or face late charges. In 1991 there were only 16.5 million homes equipped to handle PPV compared to 100 million homes in today's age. Both according to Marc Taffet who was the head of HBO's PPV department for many years;
“At that time (1991), 16 and a half million homes in America were capable of receiving pay-per-view. We did 1.4 million buys that night at $35.95. We were shocked."
“I don’t even know if I can multiply the numbers, they’re so high,” Taffet said tongue in cheek. “There are 100 million homes today capable of receiving pay-per-view. I can’t even say the number because it’s so large. I do dream about it sometimes."
https://www.ringtv.com/388125-evand...oreman-the-pound-for-pound-pay-per-view-king/
Even the PPV availability of 15-20 years ago was quite limited to what it is today. The Holyfield-Tyson rematch only had a third of the PPV availabilty that today's market has, whereas Lewis-Tyson was half of today's;
"Although HBO and Showtime executives are cautious about making predictions, Gerbrandt says he thinks tomorrow's fight can break the record. The bout has the advantage of being available to 51 million homes that can order pay-per-view, which is 16 million more than for Holyfield-Tyson II."
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/07/...rs-pay-record-price-to-watch-tyson-lewis.html
You guys saying that Mayweather-Pacquiao or Mayweather-McGregor were the biggest fight of all time are basing that on a mass media platform that hasn't even existed for 3 decades now, and has only been widely available to consumers for the last decade or so. If that, because even the Mayweather-De La Hoya fight was only available to about 65 million people on PPV compared to the 100 million we see today.
If a fight like Tyson-Spinks can sell 600k PPVs when it was only made available to 5 million homes at $35 a pop (less available than Leonard-Lalonde from the same year due to the promoters blocking PPV in many big markets like New York and such), and then also had millions more who purchased closed circuit tickets for their local theater or arena showing of the fight, how many buys would that do 30 years later when 100 million households in North America are equipped to handle PPV by simply pressing a button? Tough to say, but we all know that fight would have done a hell of a lot more than the 600k buys it did at the time with the availability and conveniences that today's PPV fights have. Ditto fights like Holyfield-Foreman. If it can do 8.8% buy rate with 1.4 million buys out of an available 16.5 million homes that number would increase dramatically if it was available in 100 million homes of today's age. Or vice versa. What kind of PPV buy total does Mayweather-Pacquiao get if it happened 15, 20, 25, 30 years ago? It would have been a huge fight regardless of era, but not anywhere close to 4+ million buys I can tell you that.
All eras encounter PPV piracy as well. Today's it's illegal online streaming. Back in the 1990's it was the illegal "black boxes" that, if you didn't have one for yourself, you were liable to know someone who did. They were very common for people who were around back then. Insiders estimate that those black boxes with their descrambling chips inside cost cable companies billions of dollars a year in lost revenue. e.g. In 1991 the National Cable Television Association put the number at $4.7 billion for that year alone.