the " boxing has been around longer " excuse for low pay in ufc

[Tarantula152]

It's starting to change now, but the reason fighters get paid smaller in UFC is because MMA in general has 100x more sponsorship contracts behind it compared to boxing. When a boxer trains for a fight, that's it for him. He needs to win to take everything, very few boxers get sponsorship contracts. Almost every UFC fighter has a sponsorship contract of some sort, some fighters carrying more than one.

Take Anderson Silva for example...

Silver Star contract - $210,000 a year
Sinister Brand contract - $150,000 a year
TapouT contract - $350,000 a year
RVCA contract - $150,000 a year

And that's just some of his CLOTHING sponsorships, I'm leaving out all the sports drinks and the MMA commercials, etc.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Uchi Mata

A fighter's union would be the shit, and you know Dana loses sleep over it, hence his giving fighters insurance as a way to buy them off. Believe me, he didn't spend that money out of the goodness of his heart.

I keep hearing this and I wonder what people think a fighters union would actually accomplish. Most sports unions are nothing more than a collection of the highest paid and established athletes making sure that they get theirs and it is usually at the expense of rookies and younger players..Also most are not all that strong..The MLB union may be the only exception to this.

[Gunny]

Lower purses than boxing = bigger profit for promotions = more money for marketing and brand development = rapid growth of the sport = more, better, bigger fights = more and more fans = increasing purses.

[db03892]

Originally Posted by cyborgassassin

lol...

Carwin made far more than 90k too!

Carwin probably made about a half a mil or maybe more overall.

Whats with this "zuffa zombie" bullshit??

get your head out of your ass maybe........

Huh? How's that?

[DaGenius]

Originally Posted by Azure

I keep hearing this and I wonder what people think a fighters union would actually accomplish. Most sports unions are nothing more than a collection of the highest paid and established athletes making sure that they get theirs and it is usually at the expense of rookies and younger players..Also most are not all that strong..The MLB union may be the only exception to this.

Very simply put, a fighters union or association would come together, sit in the UFC offices and make a simple point..We are not going to fight unless we get x% of the revenue. 50 would be fair but my guess is they would take less than that.

[T Hab]

Originally Posted by panamaican

And this circle's back to your problem.

Because you don't value the other organizations you continue to discount their effect on the market. UFC, KOTC, BAMMA, Bellator, Shark Fights, Shooto, Titan FC, etc. If you can't calculate fighter revenue, you can look at the number of events these org's put out to determine what percentage of the actual market for fighters the UFC controls.

Let's look at this objectively - KOTC (20), Bellator (19), Shark fights (6), Shooto (16), Titan (6), M-1 (18, 11 events so far this year). Those 6 org's account for 78 MMA events. If the UFC produces 25 events this year (23 in 2010, so that's a fair number). That's less than a quarter of the events before we start adding in all the other organizations in the U.S. and world wide.

Now, if you're going to tell me that the UFC is paying a wage that is so disparate to give them even 60% of the wages in the MMA industry, that would completely fly in the face of how many events are actually put out on a monthly or even yearly basis and how many fighters must be employed to make those events possible.

There is no monopsony. You have a brand leader with many large employers and many more small employers. Either you're discounting the size of the MMA marketplace or you don't understand what a monopsony is (I think it's the former).

Here is a sample of Bellator salaries:

Bellator 35 salaries: Welterweight tourney winners each bank $20K | MMAjunkie.com

(On a side note, poor Mr. Castro... only made $500).

The top paid fighters made $20,000. Now, I don't pretend to know locker room bonuses, but there is a massive scale difference here. GSP, in one fight, makes more than all Bellator fighters across two events. (This is using published paydays, again, I'm not pretending to have insider knowledge).

By published paydays, Bellator actually pays quite a bit more than the others on your list. This is a bit dated, but here is a comparison of KOTC, K1, and a UFC Fight night. The total fighter payroll for KOTC was less than 12% of the payroll for the UFC fight night. In 3 Fight nights (or one PPV show), the UFC more than covers all of KOTC's annual payroll.

- UFC, KOTC, AND K-1 SALARY BREAKDOWN | MMAWeekly.com

So, instead of completely flying in the face of "how many events there are," I am objectively looking at what matters. At a quick glance, it would seem like Zuffa is paying 60-80% of salaries in professional MMA. This doesn't include the long-rumoured lock-room bonuses, which are also probably much bigger in Zuffa than outside Zuffa (pure speculation, but I doubt you will argue this).

UFC is definitely a brand leader too, there is no doubt about that, but Zuffa, with UFC and Strikeforce, is clearly a monopsony.

[wellsdj1]

If the fighters are happy with their pay, and I assume this to be the case as they signed the contract, why should I be concerned with their pay?

[T Hab]

Originally Posted by wellsdj1

If the fighters are happy with their pay, and I assume this to be the case as they signed the contract, why should I be concerned with their pay?

You probably shouldn't. The fighters might care, but it probably wouldn't have an effect for fans.

If lower level MMA organizations paid more, there might be more encouragement for potential athletes to enter the sport and help develop the overall level of competition, but whether Anderson Silva makes $100,000 or $10,000,000 probably has no impact on your life.

[panamaican]

Originally Posted by DaGenius

Very simply put, a fighters union or association would come together, sit in the UFC offices and make a simple point..We are not going to fight unless we get x% of the revenue. 50 would be fair but my guess is they would take less than that.

The problem is that while there is reason to believe that the result of a union will be lower employment and that the total pay for fighters wouldn't be higher than if they was no union at all.

It seems counterintuitive but everyone seems to assume that the fighters could get 50%+ of the revenue. There's no reason to believe 50% of the revenue is even available to distribute. We know that the UFC is running a 30% gross margin on their share of event revenue (which is the gate and their share of ppv) after debt. And that fighters are getting approximately 20-25% of that 30%. The rest is going to operational and administrative costs for the UFC organization. We don't know what those totals are but fighter salaries would have to at least double, at the minimum, to give them 50%. Is there enough left over to remain profitable, that's the question.

[T Hab]

Originally Posted by panamaican

We know that the UFC is running a 30% gross margin on their share of event revenue (which is the gate and their share of ppv) after debt. And that fighters are getting approximately 20-25% of that 30%.

How do we know that?

(I'm not doubting that the numbers could be true, just curious since it is rare to get accurate P&L statements for privately held companies)