By Ray Ender
On Saturday, June 9, 2012 you have one of the most stacked sporting days, first you have the Belmont Stakes horse racing event from Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, that starts at around 4:00 PM which took a sad turn of events when the favorite horse I’ll Have Another who was predicted to be the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed won in 1978, had to retire from racing do to an injury.
What could interfere with the Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley boxing event and possibly affect the number of Pay-Per-View buys are Game 5 of the NHL Stanley Cup finals between the New Jersey Devils and the Los Angeles Kings hockey teams, and Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics basketball teams.
Both the NHL and the NBA have two of the most important games starting a few hours before the Pacquiao vs. Bradley PPV event. The NHL Hockey game 5 (8/4 PM ET/PT) will take place in Los Angeles at the Staples Center, this game is significant because the Los Angeles Kings will have a chance to win their very first Stanley Cup and do it at home with a 3-1 lead in the finals, they should take the win and make history in front of an A-list celebrity filled home crowd, but the 3-time Stanley cup champion New Jersey Devils will not go out easy, they will need to win the next three games to make a miraculous comeback.
The NBA Eastern Conference Finals Game 7 Miami Heat vs. Boston Celtics (9:30/5:30 PM ET/PT) is the final game in the series to determine who will head to the 2012 NBA finals to face the Oklahoma City Thunder. This is an interesting match-up that could actually affect the Pacquiao vs. Bradley PPV because it’s the final game in the series and Manny Pacquiao’s favorite NBA basketball team is the Boston Celtics — Pacquiao told his promoter that he must first watch the Celtics vs. Heat game and wait until it is over before heading to the ring to fight Timothy Bradley. Even Manny Pacquiao will be tuned into the NBA game. I think the Pacquiao-Bradley event could suffer a little bit because of the scheduling conflicts, and if the NHL and NBA games go into overtime it could force Pacquiao to head into the ring and miss the ending of the Celtics vs. Heat game because their will be a lot of disgruntled boxing fans in the arena who might start a rumble having to wait 30 minutes longer to see the main event they paid for. But the main factor could be that the HBO PPV Pacquiao vs. Bradley was not heavily promoted and Bradley wasn’t a big enough B side to bring in extra viewers to order the event. As a sports fan, I will have my DVR ready.
Watch video of Manny Pacquiao’s post fight victory with the Boston Celtics in 2008:
