10 Professional Sports Teams Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao Could Buy With Their Winnings

Image via Complex Original

Sport: Basketball

League: Filipino Basketball Association

Team valuation: $3 million

Why not take a sliver (.025 percent) of the winnings and buy the Filipino basketball team you coach and were drafted by? Let's just bring the publicity stunt full circle here. For a slice of the winnings the width of a single pancit noodle, Manny Pacquiao could be the first athlete anyone cares about to play, coach, and own the team at the same time. That's nuts, and it's only possible because the team drafted Pacquiao with the 11th overall pick in the 2014 PBA Draft, and then named him as their head coach.

He's a papal-like figurehead assigned to a maybe play in a game or two, or even four for shits and plenty of giggles, and throw on a football lettermen's jacket for some reason and do a press conference talking about being a head coach. Whatever. But if he becomes the owner, he can do a bit of good in this world: Sign Daniel Orton, the player who was unapologetically released by another PBA team (the sizzling “Purefoods Star Hotshots”) for rightly criticizing the absurdity of allowing a publicity stunt to happen in the middle of his job. Filipino basketball is so, so serious, and when PacGawd is involved, everything turns batshit.

Sport: Basketball

League: NBA D-League

Team valuation: $4 million

If Manny cops the PBA team and the Lakers' D-League affiliate, he'll be on his way to world domination. In time, with a handful of other minor purchases across continents and oceans, the sun will never set on the Pacquiao Basketball Empire. Another great idea: His kids take private basketball lessons every week in L.A., so Manny could just sign his kids to the team and they'd become the basketball equivalent of Empire.

Sport: Baseball

League: MiLB

Team valuation: $20 million

Floyd lives out in Las Vegas full-time. I don't know how he does it. Las Vegas is a cultural wasteland that's unbearably hot, but hey, when you can afford to live like a king in the capital of American excessiveness and fairy tale luxury, fucking hell, go for it, yeah! Adding the local baseball team would be a coup for Floyd. He could throw out the first pitch of a game wearing some sort of King Louis XIII garb (something he sorta already has the boots for) and challenge 50 Cent to a pitching contest. The loser has to watch all nine innings of the game.

Sport: Hockey

League: Canadian Hockey League

Team valuation: $25 million

Floyd Mayweather has no connection whatsoever to Quebec, and there's absolutely no reason why you should ever care about this junior hockey league team. In fact, there's no way he'd be able to ever visit Quebec. Nope, not with his convictions. But Floyd fancies himself as a boss, and holy shit were the words “business acumen” used by announcers a million times during the fight coverage to bring praise upon him.

Here's a decent pitch that, as the smart business man he claims to be, he should be able to see the value in: Canadian League Hockey, aside from the NHL teams playing in Canada, is some of the highest level play in the country. And because Canada is hockey-mad, these games—played by 16 to 20-year-olds who earn stipends of a reported $140 per month—sell-out. Teams earn gate receipts off of virtually free labor done by teenagers, but it's amateurism, so it's sacred and whatever. Think of the children! Stop me now if you've seen this before in American sports. Floyd should ask the Texas Longhorns what the margins are and then give the Remparts a call.

Sport: Football

League: Arena Football

Team valuation: $25 million

Cop the 51s and Outlaws, and he'll be the professional sporting kingpin of Las Vegas. All for 16 percent of his newly boosted $331 million total net worth, too. Go for it, Floyd.

Sport: Soccer

League: MLS

Team valuation: $114 million

At a $114 million valuation, Pacquiao would be emptying the coffers for the MLS' original New York franchise. He could rebrand the team as the New York Pacmen, and boldly sell it as an tribute to both himself and the city's meatpacking district. There's a team in Green Bay that has a similar name, too. This works. Maybe not, but that idea is still 150 percent better than calling a soccer team the name of an Austrian energy drink.

Sport: Soccer

League: MLS

Team valuation: $175 million

In my fantasy where Manny spends all of his winnings on the Red Bulls and Floyd does the same on the Sounders (the MLS' highest valued franchise), renaming them Money Team FC, the greatest East-West sports rivalry since the last Celtics-Lakers series can happen.

Sport: Hockey

League: NHL

Team valuation: $288 million

The total estimated payout for the two fighters is currently $300 million. If the two, for currently inexplicable reason, pooled their winnings, the Buffalo Sabres would be the most expensive North American sports franchise they could buy. The 23rd most valuable NHL team and instant hero-status in a strong sports town is worth it, guys.

Sport: Soccer

League: Serie A

Team valuation: $296 million

Napoli, the most popular soccer team in Southern Italy, would be the most expensive sports team that falls within this hypothetical MayPac purse pooling. If Buffalo doesn't work out, a trip to beautiful Naples would be in order. Can't you imagine the two having a Lady & the Tramp pasta noodle moment in a restaurant out there and having it caught on Vine? Given the amount of hugging they subjected themselves to during the fight, that's the next logical step in their relationship here.

Thank goodness the fight is over with.