What do gross PPV dollars have to do with anything? That’s a pretty small part of the overall story.
That has everything to do with it as that is where the UFC makes most of their money. If they were not drawing any ppv buys then the UFC would be diminishing instead of getting larger. Since they are gaining in popularity what’s wrong with sharing a bit more with their stars? This will not only benefit those in the UFC but it will also attract even more talent as the pay goes up.
[/quote]
PPV numbers are only a part of the total gross income. You have the gate and sponsorship. We would have to look at how boxing does in comparision here.
You also can’t focus on the “gross” part. We don’t know what their expenses are. We don’t know how much they are clearing and what % of that goes to the fighters.
You also can’t focus on one fight. They are essentially running a leage and that costs money. I will admit that I am not the most knowledgable boxing fan, but i see this as a major difference. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that in boxing you essentially have a co promotion. Meaning two promoters come together for a single fight.
If one were to say that the UFC should be paying fighters more money, they would need to have some idea where the money was going. What money should the fighters be getting? Money that goes into promotion? Money that goes into production? Unless you assume that the major share holders are swimming in piles of $ from the UFC spoils, any extra money paid to fighters is coming from somewhere.
This is what bothers me about people saying fighters should be paid more. Number one, we don’t know what they are really clearing a year for fighting. We don’t even know the total the UFC is paying them. It is not what is reported.
Number two, we don’t know what the profit is on the reported revenue. We don’t know how much of that profit is being re-invested. Saying fighters should be paid more with the limited information we have is just an ill informed opinion. There is nothing to back it up. Maybe that’s why no other promotion can pay them more and stay in business?
Again, you are only looking at a small fraction of the information needed to judge fighter pay being equitable.
You don’t know what they are making per fight. All we see is what is reported to the state athletic commitee.
You don’t know what he makes. You don’t know what money is actually available to be paid to him. Gross ppv numbers don’t tell us anything. Go look at any company’s annual report you’ll and start to understand what I am talking about.
Any sport that is less popular and brings in less money. This is all very simple economics.
What do gross PPV dollars have to do with anything? That’s a pretty small part of the overall story.
That has everything to do with it as that is where the UFC makes most of their money. If they were not drawing any ppv buys then the UFC would be diminishing instead of getting larger. Since they are gaining in popularity what’s wrong with sharing a bit more with their stars? This will not only benefit those in the UFC but it will also attract even more talent as the pay goes up.
PPV numbers are only a part of the total gross income. You have the gate and sponsorship. We would have to look at how boxing does in comparision here.[/quote]
Correct, that means that there’s even more money available to pay the fighters properly, yet Dana White doesn’t do it.
I agree, but one of the biggest(if not the most) expenses is fighter salaries. And we know how Dana White deals with those, he pays them as little as possible. I appreciate the fact that advertising is costly, but it doesn’t nearly eat up the 30-40 million dollars that come in from ppv.
I think you are correct on this. That is one more reason why Dana White and the UFC should be paying their fighters more money. There is no one else to share the large gate which is generated by ppv and other means.
Are you aware that the Ferrita brothers own the UFC? Dana White is a minor shareholder and President. And yes they are swimming in cash off the backs of the under paid fighters.
Each venue is different, but here is where Dana White and the Ferrita brothers save a great deal of money by underpaying their fighers. At random I have on one event where all of the fighters combined were paid less than one half million dollars:
Here is another article where the author agrees with me:
After reading several of these it seems all of the fighters combined are usually paid between 400-K and 700-K for one event. Given the fact that the UFC draws between 30-40 million in ppv alone no one can argue that the fighters are not paid enough. Do you realize that the total is under 2% of revenue from ppv? That does not include the many other avenues of revenue that the UFC has.
True, we don’t know everything and in a private company we will never know everything. But, we do know enough to know that the fighers are underpaid. We know what the UFC gross for ppv is, we know that this is not the only revenue received, we know that they have created a UFC game and own the fighters likeness and made tens of millions of dollars from that as well. We know that there is a “live” gate. We do know enough to know that paying 300-K to a champion to defend his title is not only not enough but borders on insulting.
The reason that some have failed is because Dana White and Company have a good lock on ppv and the main big name fighers, it’s not a mystery at this point. As long as they have this they will continue to underpay their fighers.
Given this hypothesis we don’t know how much more boxers make, or baseball players, football players and on and on. That is no excuse. What we do know is that the fighters in the UFC are paid less than any other major sport.
What you should be doing is questioning why they are paid at such a low level. Do you have any idea why?
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Here’s an article from Forbes magazine talking about the highest paid athletes:
I think it’s odd that while mma is one of the most popular sports, and growing, they have THE lowest paid athletes, it’s not even close. [/quote]
Maybe because they are using the money they gain to rapidly expand. Got to have a solid business before you blow all your money on fighters(see Affliction).
What do gross PPV dollars have to do with anything? That’s a pretty small part of the overall story.
That has everything to do with it as that is where the UFC makes most of their money. If they were not drawing any ppv buys then the UFC would be diminishing instead of getting larger. Since they are gaining in popularity what’s wrong with sharing a bit more with their stars? This will not only benefit those in the UFC but it will also attract even more talent as the pay goes up.
PPV numbers are only a part of the total gross income. You have the gate and sponsorship. We would have to look at how boxing does in comparison here.
Correct, that means that there’s even more money available to pay the fighters properly, yet Dana White doesn’t do it.
You also can’t focus on the “gross” part. We don’t know what their expenses are. We don’t know how much they are clearing and what % of that goes to the fighters.
I agree, but one of the biggest(if not the most) expenses is fighter salaries. And we know how Dana White deals with those, he pays them as little as possible. I appreciate the fact that advertising is costly, but it doesn’t nearly eat up the 30-40 million dollars that come in from ppv.
You also can’t focus on one fight. They are essentially running a league and that costs money. I will admit that I am not the most knowledgeable boxing fan, but i see this as a major difference. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that in boxing you essentially have a co promotion. Meaning two promoters come together for a single fight.
I think you are correct on this. That is one more reason why Dana White and the UFC should be paying their fighters more money. There is no one else to share the large gate which is generated by ppv and other means.
Unless you assume that the major share holders are swimming in piles of $ from the UFC spoils, any extra money paid to fighters is coming from somewhere.
Are you aware that the Ferrita brothers own the UFC? Dana White is a minor shareholder and President. And yes they are swimming in cash off the backs of the under paid fighters.
Each venue is different, but here is where Dana White and the Ferrita brothers save a great deal of money by underpaying their fighers. At random I have on one event where all of the fighters combined were paid less than one half million dollars:
Here is another article where the author agrees with me:
After reading several of these it seems all of the fighters combined are usually paid between 400-K and 700-K for one event. Given the fact that the UFC draws between 30-40 million in ppv alone no one can argue that the fighters are not paid enough. Do you realize that the total is under 2% of revenue from ppv? That does not include the many other avenues of revenue that the UFC has.
Saying fighters should be paid more with the limited information we have is just an ill informed opinion.
True, we don’t know everything and in a private company we will never know everything. But, we do know enough to know that the fighers are underpaid. We know what the UFC gross for ppv is, we know that this is not the only revenue received, we know that they have created a UFC game and own the fighters likeness and made tens of millions of dollars from that as well. We know that there is a “live” gate. We do know enough to know that paying 300-K to a champion to defend his title is not only not enough but borders on insulting.
Maybe that’s why no other promotion can pay them more and stay in business?
The reason that some have failed is because Dana White and Company have a good lock on ppv and the main big name fighers, it’s not a mystery at this point. As long as they have this they will continue to underpay their fighers.
You don’t know what they are making per fight. All we see is what is reported to the state athletic commitee.
Given this hypothesis we don’t know how much more boxers make, or baseball players, football players and on and on. That is no excuse. What we do know is that the fighters in the UFC are paid less than any other major sport.
What you should be doing is questioning why they are paid at such a low level. Do you have any idea why?
[/quote]
A lot of the top guys are on a PPV cut in addition to the figures you see, in addition to the annual salary, in addition to the appearance fees, in addition to the sponsorship deals, in addition to the films and tv roles in addition to the money they make from seminars and their gyms.
Also, it would be a huge business error to be turning massive profits. The tax burden would be ridiculous, they will be deliberately maintaining a pretty low profit by reinjecting the money.
Correct, that means that there’s even more money available to pay the fighters properly, yet Dana White doesn’t do it.
[/quote]
Do other sports that pay their athelets more have more revenue from other sources? Does boxing make more in sponsorship? Do they have the burden of funding a league? Again, gross income does not tell even a fraction of the story. If you don’t understand this very simple concept, we can’t really have a discussion. You need to understand very basic economics or accounting to intelligently comment on fighter salary. Especially in the absense of other promotions successfully paying them more. I don’t know how I can make this any easier to understand.
Again, you have no idea what dana pays fighters. All we see is what is reported to the athletic commitee for a the fight itself. I don’t know how many times this can be repeated with people still ignoring it. Every owner of every sports team pays its players as little as it thinks it can get away with. Effectively every athelete is going to get as much as they possibly can. Again, this is very very basic economics.
I am aware of who owns the UFC. You have no idea how much the shareholders are making. None.
Again, this is not all the UFC pays these guys. Can you please confirm that you understand this?
Not even close.
We don’t know what they make on advertising. You made that up. We don’t what their costs are to run the UFC. Profit is the only number that could provide any indication that there is money left over to pay fighters more. We have absolutly no idea what this amount is. None.
This is bullshit. If fighters were grossly underpaid and the return on investment for the UFC was higher than other investments, there would be a lot of money thrown at MMA. This again is very simple economics. It happens in every industry.
The UFC is a nat on a rhino’s ass compared to others that would swarm to MMA if it was so easy to make a better ROI than that of average investment. The fact is that is MMA is still a niche sport and is not profitable emough to attract big investors or big advertisement. This should tell you something.
We do know what many atheletes make becuse it is made public. Both fighters and the UFC have acknowledged that what is reported to the state athletic commissions is not all that the UFCs pays its top fighters. How you are missing this is starting to amaze me. Name a sport that pays its atheletes more that has less net (not gross)revenue, less exposure, advertising, play on ESPN, ect.
Fighters may be underpaid. I have no idea and neither do you.
If they are taking advantage of their employees and the UFC is smimming in cash, like you seem to think, they must be smarter and better business men than those in NFL, NBA, NASCAR, NHL, and every other leage that pays their atheletes more. They must be smarter and better investors than all those that invested in businesses that don’t provide the same return. I find this hard to beleive.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
ZEB wrote:
dhickey wrote:
ZEB wrote:
What do gross PPV dollars have to do with anything? That’s a pretty small part of the overall story.
That has everything to do with it as that is where the UFC makes most of their money. If they were not drawing any ppv buys then the UFC would be diminishing instead of getting larger. Since they are gaining in popularity what’s wrong with sharing a bit more with their stars? This will not only benefit those in the UFC but it will also attract even more talent as the pay goes up.
PPV numbers are only a part of the total gross income. You have the gate and sponsorship. We would have to look at how boxing does in comparison here.
Correct, that means that there’s even more money available to pay the fighters properly, yet Dana White doesn’t do it.
You also can’t focus on the “gross” part. We don’t know what their expenses are. We don’t know how much they are clearing and what % of that goes to the fighters.
I agree, but one of the biggest(if not the most) expenses is fighter salaries. And we know how Dana White deals with those, he pays them as little as possible. I appreciate the fact that advertising is costly, but it doesn’t nearly eat up the 30-40 million dollars that come in from ppv.
You also can’t focus on one fight. They are essentially running a league and that costs money. I will admit that I am not the most knowledgeable boxing fan, but i see this as a major difference. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that in boxing you essentially have a co promotion. Meaning two promoters come together for a single fight.
I think you are correct on this. That is one more reason why Dana White and the UFC should be paying their fighters more money. There is no one else to share the large gate which is generated by ppv and other means.
Unless you assume that the major share holders are swimming in piles of $ from the UFC spoils, any extra money paid to fighters is coming from somewhere.
Are you aware that the Ferrita brothers own the UFC? Dana White is a minor shareholder and President. And yes they are swimming in cash off the backs of the under paid fighters.
Each venue is different, but here is where Dana White and the Ferrita brothers save a great deal of money by underpaying their fighers. At random I have on one event where all of the fighters combined were paid less than one half million dollars:
Here is another article where the author agrees with me:
After reading several of these it seems all of the fighters combined are usually paid between 400-K and 700-K for one event. Given the fact that the UFC draws between 30-40 million in ppv alone no one can argue that the fighters are not paid enough. Do you realize that the total is under 2% of revenue from ppv? That does not include the many other avenues of revenue that the UFC has.
Saying fighters should be paid more with the limited information we have is just an ill informed opinion.
True, we don’t know everything and in a private company we will never know everything. But, we do know enough to know that the fighers are underpaid. We know what the UFC gross for ppv is, we know that this is not the only revenue received, we know that they have created a UFC game and own the fighters likeness and made tens of millions of dollars from that as well. We know that there is a “live” gate. We do know enough to know that paying 300-K to a champion to defend his title is not only not enough but borders on insulting.
Maybe that’s why no other promotion can pay them more and stay in business?
The reason that some have failed is because Dana White and Company have a good lock on ppv and the main big name fighers, it’s not a mystery at this point. As long as they have this they will continue to underpay their fighers.
You don’t know what they are making per fight. All we see is what is reported to the state athletic commitee.
Given this hypothesis we don’t know how much more boxers make, or baseball players, football players and on and on. That is no excuse. What we do know is that the fighters in the UFC are paid less than any other major sport.
What you should be doing is questioning why they are paid at such a low level. Do you have any idea why?
A lot of the top guys are on a PPV cut in addition to the figures you see, in addition to the annual salary, in addition to the appearance fees, in addition to the sponsorship deals, in addition to the films and tv roles in addition to the money they make from seminars and their gyms.[/quote]
I would hope that the major stars are getting a cut of ppv, but I wonder how many actually are, few if any I bet. Also, any money that top athletes make other than their salary is NOT supposed to replace their salary. For example, Tiger Woods might make more in endorsements than he does on the PGA at this point, but so what? Does that give the PGA carte blanche to under pay Woods? Of course not, and they don’t.
Good point, tell me how they are “reinjecting the money” I don’t see it but I might be missing something.
Correct, that means that there’s even more money available to pay the fighters properly, yet Dana White doesn’t do it.
Do other sports that pay their athelets more have more revenue from other sources? Does boxing make more in sponsorship? Do they have the burden of funding a league?[/quote]
Burden? I wouldn’t call it a burden it’s more like a monopolistic money machine, isn’t it?
I’ve promoted small shows for almost 20 years. Nothing near what UFC does, but I’m very familiar with business from top to bottom. And I can tell you that Dana White and company are making a heck of a lot of money, enough to pay their top stars more, far more, but they don’t.
Then we do have an idea don’t we? If you are claiming that they are paid more share with me how much. If you don’t know how much more than why do you ASSUME that there is a great deal more?
Until the above question is answered, that is HOW MUCH MORE?
Just as you have no idea why the top UFC fighers are the lowest paid athletes on the planet who are involved in such a popular sport- NONE.
When you can confirm how much more that they’re paid. Can you do this? While you’re at it tell me why so many mma writers, fighers, agents and managers agree with me?
[quote]True, we don’t know everything and in a private company we will never know everything. But, we do know enough to know that the fighers are underpaid.
Not even close.
We know what the UFC gross for ppv is, we know that this is not the only revenue received, we know that they have created a UFC game and own the fighters likeness and made tens of millions of dollars from that as well. We know that there is a “live” gate. We do know enough to know that paying 300-K to a champion to defend his title is not only not enough but borders on insulting.
We don’t know what they make on advertising. You made that up. We don’t what their costs are to run the UFC. Profit is the only number that could provide any indication that there is money left over to pay fighters more. We have absolutly no idea what this amount is. None.[/quote]
I see, so your defense of these outrageous business practices is going to be that the UFC expenses are so high that they can’t afford to pay a champion more than say 300-K to defend his title?
[quote]The reason that some have failed is because Dana White and Company have a good lock on ppv and the main big name fighers, it’s not a mystery at this point. As long as they have this they will continue to underpay their fighers.
This is bullshit. If fighters were grossly underpaid and the return on investment for the UFC was higher than other investments, there would be a lot of money thrown at MMA. This again is very simple economics. It happens in every industry.[/quote]
Not when Dana White and company control most of the good fighers and also have cut deals with various ppv venues. What does that leave a possible competitor?
Honestly, claiming that all of the UFC events, the video games, the action figures and the weekly TV show etc. just don’t bring in enough income to pay the fighers is simply wrong.
[quote]
Given this hypothesis we don’t know how much more boxers make, or baseball players, football players and on and on. That is no excuse. What we do know is that the fighters in the UFC are paid less than any other major sport.
We do know what many atheletes make becuse it is made public. Both fighters and the UFC have acknowledged that what is reported to the state athletic commissions is not all that the UFCs pays its top fighters. How you are missing this is starting to amaze me. Name a sport that pays its atheletes more that has less net (not gross)revenue, less exposure, advertising, play on ESPN, ect.[/quote]
Ah yes, that mysterious secret money again. Tell me how much it is and why it’s not public? Also, if they pay a Lesnar or a GSP 300-K to defend their title how much more do they give them in secret? It would have to be in the neighborhood of 750-K to 2 million to bring them up to even the lowest level of an equally popular sport.
It’s hard to believe because it’s not true.
What they did do however was invest in the only business that was doing this at the time. Smart? Certainly, but what they did after this was even smarter. They gained acceptance by going to the various boxing commisions, locked up the big talent and smooshed the ppv execs’ and constantly promoted the name. All good business practices and we can admire them for it. BUT, what they did after this is what I am questioning. That is, they feel that since they have such a lock on the industry they don’t have to pay the fighters what they are actually worth. This not only disrespects the fighters, but also harms their own chances of gaining even more talent in the industry. If you are a tough kid and are good at wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu, and mma in general, but are also good at football or baseball which do you focus on as you mature? Naturally you’re going to gravitate to where the money is. That means less talent will come in to the UFC than could have. What would you rather do if given the opportunity? Make 10-2- million dollars a year, or get 300-K per fight and maybe fight three times per year? I know what I would choose.
Also, I do believe that eventually another organization will pop up well financed that will be able to compete with the UFC. So far the money and the skill to run such an organization have not come together, but it will, it will. Until then UFC fighers will continue to be the lowest paid athletes on the planet, and that is a shame.
(By the way I’m enjoying the debate and I have to say this is very rare for this forum. We’ve gone back and forth a few times and no one has even once name called, very rare.)
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
A lot of the top guys are on a PPV cut in addition to the figures you see, in addition to the annual salary, in addition to the appearance fees, in addition to the sponsorship deals, in addition to the films and tv roles in addition to the money they make from seminars and their gyms.
I would hope that the major stars are getting a cut of ppv, but I wonder how many actually are, few if any I bet. Also, any money that top athletes make other than their salary is NOT supposed to replace their salary. For example, Tiger Woods might make more in endorsements than he does on the PGA at this point, but so what? Does that give the PGA carte blanche to under pay Woods? Of course not, and they don’t.
Also, it would be a huge business error to be turning massive profits. The tax burden would be ridiculous, they will be deliberately maintaining a pretty low profit by reinjecting the money.
Good point, tell me how they are “reinjecting the money” I don’t see it but I might be missing something.
[/quote]
Firstly a lot of the extra money that UFC fighters make is through deals negotiated by the UFC. Secondly most of the guys that headline cards are on a PPV cut. And thirdly most of the additional money that these guys make they would not make if they were not fighting in the UFC.
As for reinjecting money, the expansion into new markets is costing them huge amounts of money.
As has repeatedly been stated, if it was that easy to make huge rolls of cash in MMA why are the other businesses that try going to the wall?
Comparing with Boxing is not a fair comparison. In boxing, the fighter is normally also co promoter. The TV channel that shows the fight then puts up the money. That is why you see less and less good matchups. The TV companies are not making enough money back on the fights so don’t want to put up the money. The greed of the boxers has helped kill the sport.
We don’t know what the return on investment is for the UFC.
We don’t know how many years they lost money.
We don’t know how many years they had little to no return.
This all has to be repaid for an investment to pay off.
We don’t know how much money they are clearing after all expenses and reinvestment. Trying to extrapolate from smaller shows, boxing, or other sports is silling and useless.
We don’t know how much they are really paying their fighters per year.
What we do know (basic understanding of economics required):
No other promotion has been able to pay better and survive.
No other big investment is clammering to get into MMA. This would indicate the ROI is no better than your average investment.
No other big promotions from other sports are clammering to get into MMA.
The Fighters and the UFC are both volentarily signing contracts.
Salaries are nothing more than prices. Prices are determined by supply and demand.
I have said before that I don’t know for sure what fighters are being paid and if UFC ownership is piling up cash or not. Basic economics and common sense says they are not. Even so, some are foolish enough to proclaim they are being grossly underpaid with no appreciable proof or any solid economic explanation why they would be able to.
Here’s more interesting information that will shed some light on what the UFC makes:
“The Fertittas field pleas from private equity and media firms to sell UFC. Those offers, they assert, exceed $1 billion. Not a bad return on investment for something they paid a mere $2 million for in 2001.”
Wow, they’re pretty good business men aren’t they? Purchased it for 2 million and now it’s probably worth 1 billion, that’s “B” as in BILLION!
I’ve seen all sorts of income statements and balance sheets and read other financial data. It seems that if you pay your help somewhere between 8% and 20% on a monthly basis you are in the ball park. If they grossed 250 million last year that means that they could afford to pay at least their top guys 1 million per fight. But, they don’t!
I admire your passion my friend, but on this one you’re just wrong. The UFC could easily afford to pay their fighters what other top sports champions make.
Here is an article from a writer who seems to agree with me. Even after expenses he claims that the fighters are underpaid:
By Lee Andrew Henderson
"I’ve written many UFC articles lately. The only thing booming faster than the amount of articles I’ve written on the UFC is the UFC’s popularity and the money the UFC is raking in. The UFC is making a boatload of money all around, except for the fighters.
Right now the UFC fighters are not making as much money as they should. In April of 2005 the UFC had two of their most popular fighters Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell face each other. According to some reports the PPV had 280,000 buys at $34.95 each. That makes the show worth $9.8 million dollars. Chuck Liddell was only paid $140,000 and Randy Couture was paid $150,000. That means the main event fighters, the main reason people tuned in, got about three percent of the money.
In February the UFC held the third meeting between Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell. This time the PPV did 410,00 buys at $39.95 each, which comes out to $16.34 million. In the rematch Randy Couture got $225,000 and Chuck Liddell got $250,000. Again this comes out to about three percent. The entire card as a whole was paid $656,000, which is four percent of the earnings.
I know there are some people shaking their heads right now saying I’m crazy. They have $250,000 what more could they want? I’d kill for $250,00! If that is all you have to say then don’t bother commenting because I’m not buying it. If the UFC is making $16.34 million for one show then the top draw should be making more than $250,000. You might think it’s crazy that the athletes even get $656,000 combined but it’s more ridiculous that the people not fighting made $15.6 million.
Ok, so they didn’t get all of that, there is the cost of the venue, production, marketing, etc, but that all comes out to about $5 million. So the non-fighters are still making $10.6 million, seventeen times more than the fighters are.
UFC’s popularity has even passed boxing and yet boxers get paid well, UFC fighters get chump change compared to boxers. Erik Morales and Manny Pacquiao headlined one boxing match last year. The PPV made $15.7 million. Morales got $2.5 million and Pacquiao got $2 million. The two main event fighters alone are making twenty-eight percent of the money and they get a portion of the gate on top of that. If the UFC is now doing better than boxing there is no reason the UFC fighters shouldn’t be making as much as boxers."
This writer compares the UFC with other top sports including Hockey, NFL etc. He seems to reach the same conclusion that many of us have, that is the UFC underpays its fighters:
"It’s quite an interesting world in sports entertainment when it comes to the amount of money professional athletes earn on a yearly basis. Some may say they get paid far too much. However, in the world of Mixed Martial Arts, I thinks it’s quite the opposite.
For example, lets take a look at a record breaking deal that went down not to long ago. For fans on the NHL, you’ll be familiar, for those who are not, I’m talking about Alex Ovechkin. In January 2008 the Washington Capital’s signed Ovechkin to the richest contract in NHL history for 124 million dollars for 13 years. This contract is to pay him 9 million a year for the first 6 years and 10 million for the last 7 years. Not too bad eh?
So, if the top of the game in the NHL is making 10 million a year, what is the top of the game in the UFC pulling in? It’s gotta be close right? Wrong! Anderson Silva who is arguably pound for pound the top fighter in the world just won UFC 82 this past weekend and made a meager $260,000 for winning the fight. If he had lost, he would have taken home $70,000 less.
Can you see the contrast? Mind you that is only one fight. Most fighters are really only going to look at 2 - 3 fights per year. In that case lets say that he does win 3 fights in a years span and all of them are of the calibre of UFC 82, he’d be looking at about $750,000 per year. That’s about 10 times less than what good ole Alex Ovechkin is raking in.
The toughest pill to swallow here, is how fast the sport of MMA is growing and how little support the up and comers have. It’s a long road to actually get to the stage of super stardom of a guy like Anderson Silva. In contrast again to the NHL, (the least profitable sport next to the NFL, MLB and NBA) the leauge minimum for the 2008 - 2009 season is $500,000. If you get to the show in the UFC and you are lucky enough to get 3 cards in a year, you realistically are looking at somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000. This is embarrassing!
If you’re on the same page as we are at MMA Fight Tribe then stop by our site (still in construction) and get ready to take part in the biggest evolution the sport has ever seen. We will be taking donations soon, to go towards your favorite fighters and fight teams!"
Here’s one final article (sorry I just couldn’t stop reading about it). I thought the title was catchy. Note how they pay out their big six figure contract to the winner of the Ultimate Fighter:
UFC Fighters Get Paid Like Minor League Baseball Players (if you suck)
In preparation for UFC 101, we examine how much UFC fighters are actually paid for beating the crap out of their opponents in the Octogon. The myth is that UFC has gone mainstream and fighters are getting millions for each fight. This cannot be further from the truth as fighters are getting paid next to nothing.
On each of the final episode of â??The Ultimate Fighterâ??, Dana White claims to offer a six figured salary for the winner. What no one knows is that thereâ??s a big astrix next to the six figured salary and a fighter is not guaranteed that much money. As stated in MMA weekly in 2006:
â??In the first year, the salary for each fight is $12,000 to fight and an additional $12,000 to win. Fighting income for the year would range from $36,000 to $72,000, depending on wins and losses. In the second year, itâ??s $16,000 and $16,000 per fight, meaning that fighting income for the year would range from $48,000 to $96,000. In the third year, itâ??s $22,000 and $22,000 per fight, meaning that fighting income for the year would range from $66,000 to $122,000.â??
When you consider that these salaries are before deductions from insurance, taxes and licenses, it really isnâ??t a whole lot of money for training your butt off for 6 months of a year for one fight. Granted that fighters have sponsors that add to their compensation packages, those packages are only designated for the heavy hitters.
Consider UFC 100, hereâ??s the breakdown of the salaries for some of the fights. Itâ??s worth noting that the big guys like Brock Lesnar and George St. Pierre earns a portion of the income from the PPV, so they are set. But Frank Mir? Heâ??s out of luck this time.
Brock Lesnar: $400,000 (no win bonus)
def. Frank Mir: $45,000 (Bring Obama to give him more money)
Georges St-Pierre: $400,000 ($200,000 win bonus)
def. Thiago Alves: $60,000 (This is a huge difference)
Dong Hyun Kim: $58,000 ($29,000 win bonus)
def. T.J. Grant: $5,000 (WTF? Is that even enough to cover the travel expenses)
The total payout for UFC 100 was around $1.8 million which is how much Rashard Lewis gets fined for testing positive for steroids. Are UFC fighters underpaid or NBA players overpaid? You decide."
Holy bad math. PPV Buys + cost of PPV != amount zuffa sees.
Zeb: that article you quoted, says "UFC estimated 2008 sales: $250 million "
Zuffa is a private company, they don’t release earnings figures, and don’t have to. Since you have no clue what they make you can’t even guess as to what they should be paying their fighters.
Laws of supply and demand dictate how much they’ll pay a fighter. There are VERY few fighters that will add a $1 million draw to a ppv, so there are very few fighters that make even close to that.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Here’s more interesting information that will shed some light on what the UFC makes:
“The Fertittas field pleas from private equity and media firms to sell UFC. Those offers, they assert, exceed $1 billion. Not a bad return on investment for something they paid a mere $2 million for in 2001.”
Wow, they’re pretty good business men aren’t they? Purchased it for 2 million and now it’s probably worth 1 billion, that’s “B” as in BILLION!
I’ve seen all sorts of income statements and balance sheets and read other financial data. It seems that if you pay your help somewhere between 8% and 20% on a monthly basis you are in the ball park. If they grossed 250 million last year that means that they could afford to pay at least their top guys 1 million per fight. But, they don’t!
I admire your passion my friend, but on this one you’re just wrong. The UFC could easily afford to pay their fighters what other top sports champions make.[/quote]
They are paying their top guys in excess of 1 million per fight.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
I’m here with ZEB.
Most of his arguments are rock hard (UFC’s recent success, message to new talent etc)
I don’t care for the “secret money”.
Fighter are clearly underpaid. They shouldn’t have to rely on a vague promise for some semi-shady bonus.
[/quote]
I can possibly see the argument that the bottom paid guys in the UFC are getting underpaid (they do well comapared to boxing undercard but it would be good if there was a way to pay them a bit more.)
For the guys at the top, they are making good money. I am sure in a few years the guys at the very top will be making even more money but the UFC is right not to rush into this and set a precident that could kill the sport down the line.
I will again make the point that boxing suffers badly from having overpaid fighters for a number of years. They now can’t put the fights together because it doesn’t make business sense.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
Schwarzfahrer wrote:
I’m here with ZEB.
Most of his arguments are rock hard (UFC’s recent success, message to new talent etc)
I don’t care for the “secret money”.
Fighter are clearly underpaid. They shouldn’t have to rely on a vague promise for some semi-shady bonus.
I can possibly see the argument that the bottom paid guys in the UFC are getting underpaid (they do well comapared to boxing undercard but it would be good if there was a way to pay them a bit more.)
For the guys at the top, they are making good money. I am sure in a few years the guys at the very top will be making even more money but the UFC is right not to rush into this and set a precident that could kill the sport down the line.
I will again make the point that boxing suffers badly from having overpaid fighters for a number of years. They now can’t put the fights together because it doesn’t make business sense.[/quote]
It should be noted that these undercard fighters making MAYBE 10 k a fight assuming a win are under exclusive contract to the UFC and cannot supplement their income from fighting in other orgs - nor can they choose to fight very often, that’s up to the UFC. I don’t really see these dudes making a decent living out of it and it certainly won’t tempt young super athletes in their late teens looking to make a career choice. There can only be so many superstars in one single organisation. For the sport to truly expand, there will eventually need to exist a long term competitor to the UFC.
[quote]mitchellh wrote:
Holy bad math. PPV Buys + cost of PPV != amount zuffa sees.
Zeb: that article you quoted, says "UFC estimated 2008 sales: $250 million Zuffa is a private company, they don’t release earnings figures, and don’t have to. Since you have no clue what they make you can’t even guess as to what they should be paying their fighters. "[/quote]
We can know as it is announced how many are sold. If, for example, they sell 2 million ppv buys at 40 bucks per that’s 80 million dollars. Pretty simple whether they’re public or private it matters not. We may have to guess at what the UFC game, action figures and TV show bring in but we can be sure of what the revenue on ppv is.
[quote]
Laws of supply and demand dictate how much they’ll pay a fighter. There are VERY few fighters that will add a $1 million draw to a ppv, so there are very few fighters that make even close to that.[/quote]
I’m not so sure about that. In fact, I don’t think Dana White would say that either. That’s why there is always a big name fight at the end of the card and often a couple of big name fights (one championship). People pay to see good fighters fight other good fighters, taht IS the draw. Guys like Lesnar, GSP, Penn, Couture and several others have made the UFC what it is today. What did they get in return in comparison to what the UFC makes? Squat!