Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquaio fight tickets eclipse $72M

— -- It came as no surprise, but the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight on May 2 officially destroyed the all-time boxing live gate record by more than three times -- just one of the numerous financial records shattered by the richest fight in the sport's history.

According to figures released Tuesday by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, Mayweather-Pacquiao generated $72,198,500 from the sale of 16,219 tickets at the MGM Grand Garden Arena for the welterweight title unification fight between boxing's two biggest stars -- a fight hotly anticipated for more than five years.

The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight blew away the old gate record set by Mayweather's junior middleweight title unification victory against Canelo Alvarez in 2013. That fight, also at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, generated $20,003,150 from the sale of 16,146 tickets to break the record set by Mayweather's 2007 junior middleweight title victory against Oscar De La Hoya, which generated $18,419,200 from the sale of 15,423 tickets to the MGM Grand.

Event co-promoters Mayweather Promotions and Top Rank said numerous times prior to Mayweather's unanimous decision victory against Pacquiao that there would be no free tickets, but according to the commission gate report, there were 46 complimentary tickets issued -- four in the $10,000 price category and 42 in the $2,500 price range. Surprisingly, there were nine unsold tickets to the fight -- six in the $7,500 category, two in the $5,000 category and one in the $3,500 price range.

As for the breakdown, $12.26 million came from the sale of 1,226 tickets with a face value of $10,000. Another $11.955 million came from the sale of 1,594 tickets in the $7,500 range.

The most money -- $24.67 million -- came from the sale of 4,934 tickets in the $5,000 range. Another $14,143,500 came from the sale of 4,041 tickets at $3,500 apiece.

The $2,500 price range generated $6.335 million from the sale of 2,534 tickets and the $1,500 price range generated $2.835 million from the sale of 1,890 tickets.

The average face value cost of tickets to the fight was $4,451.48, although it was much greater in reality because of the mark up of the ticket prices on the secondary market.

To put the Mayweather-Pacquiao gate record in perspective, the Super Bowl typically generates a gate of around $80 million. The big difference, however, is that there are usually more than 70,000 tickets available for the Super Bowl.