One week removed from a massive four-day international hype tour, there isn't a bigger story in sports at the moment than the Aug. 26 boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor.
Not only are many expecting the carnival fight pairing a retired pound-for-pound boxing king and a UFC champion -- the biggest stars in their respective sports -- to surpass the 2015 record of 4.6 million pay-per-view buys, but betting on the fight in Las Vegas has reached unforeseen levels.
Already a Super Bowl of sorts within the combat sports realm, betting excerpts are now projecting Mayweather-McGregor to actually eclipse the Super Bowl.
"We knew this fight would be big, potentially even bigger than the Super Bowl, but now we are almost certain it will be," Kevin Bradley, the sports book manager of Bovada, told Yahoo Sports. "The recent trash talking and promotional tour is only encouraging bets and at this rate we cannot even imagine how much we will take on it."
While most fight experts believe the boxing match will play out completely one-sided in the favor of Mayweather, 40, despite the fact he'll be coming off a two-year retirement, a loss for the 29-year-old McGregor is exactly what Las Vegas is hoping will occur.
"One thing is for sure thought, we will need Mayweather huge," Bradley said. "A McGregor early round KO, as he promised, would be a potential disaster and is partly a reason we are giving a great price on Mayweather at the moment."
With the odds on McGregor having dropped significantly, Mayweather is down to a -500 favorite with McGregor at +350.
Of the more interesting bets offered by Bovada, the odds are +1100 (11/1) that McGregor will throw a kick during the boxing match and -6500 (1/65) that he will not, even though both fighters revealed there is language in the contract stating McGregor would be sued and penalized financially should he try.
