What would YOU do to solve it?

Bearknuckle

Bearknuckle

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Ok sherdog business pros. Whats your solution to this UFC fighter pay stuff thats going around? Lets hear it. Consider what’s best for the sport, best for the fighter, and best for the fans.

Should there be a fighters union?
should fighters get 50% of all revenue like the nba?
guaranteed contracts even when they dont play/fight?
or is the model right now best for the sport?

whats fair? And what is right? And how would it effect events and the sport in the future
 
Do the nba players get 50% of all revenue or is the salary cap reflective of that 50% revenue but teams can elect to not go to the cap ceiling (genuinely asking). A lot of teams are not paying out to their limit nor are alot of teams spending 50% of their revenue on players... Looks like an average of around 30-35%. I would think that number would be fair for the UFC as well.

The other issue is roster size. 700+ roster on a 900 million dollar a year revenue organization. To put it context, Dallas cowboys make more a year and they have around 60 roster spots. The nba has 530ish players. So even if the UFC bumped up revenue split to 40-50%, and equally bumped up each fighter by an equal ration to the increased revnue share it would be a roughly 2.5 x increase -- which means low level guys probably still end up working at Walmart and Francis makes 1.5 million guaranteed on his next fight.

The best thing they could do is cut their roster size to 400, and up the split to 35%. More share of the pie and less mouths means bigger pay days.

Edit-- there's also the complex variable of fighters paid only when they fight. Obviously the revenue split to fighters as a percentage changes if the bigger stars don't fight that year or they fight frequently that year
 
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Cut USADA, keep pay where it is. Boom, triple the yearly wage because they’ll fight 3 times a year instead of once
 
I think reducing the roster is probably key.

30 in each division would make it 330 fighters total (Women's 145 has like 3, so cut it or whatever)

Raise the minimum pay to something somewhat respectable 20/20 (no hard reasoning behind that number, but 3/3 is awful)

Also have some sort of set rising pay scale after x fights and x wins. With ranking being a part of it.

Allow 1 to 2 sponsors per fighter would also help that amount. Probably undoable due to contracts with Venum but hey.

Outside of the strict fighter pay issue itself.
Make Champions defend at least twice per year. All that does is let them hold out for big money fights.

Just random ideas without much thought behind it.
 
Every other major org pays 50% revenue to the athletes. Just do that

Also, let the fighters have individual sponsors on their shorts again like they used too. That’s a major, possibly greater, revenue source that doesn’t even cost the UFC anything.
 
The UFC has a monopoly and keep fighters down by promoting its brand above fighters in order keep their chunk of the pie higher. They've got it all figured out.

In boxing, the promotion is a sidenote and the attraction is the boxers. It's opposite in the UFC.
 
Think you can't judge mma vs nfl until nfl teams play twice a year only. There has to be more moving parts than what we are debating here. Even golf or tennis, they play multiple matches a year.

If you measure time of unique content per dollar per year, maybe mma fighters are even overpaid. But I know UFC is struggling to fill up cards ahead of time like they used to. Who's to say fighting twice a year is the most a fighter should do?

Compared to boxing, MMA is actually paying decent for its undercard better. Boxing pays its bigger stars better than UFC, but I don't lose sleep that Jones and others have 10 million over 100 million.

Think this is a complicated issue and a resolution is to get paid more but for like 4 fights a year. It doesn't make sense as a fan to watch them get paid more for fighting less. The twice a year average number has to go, the fighters have too much training time in between.
 
The UFC should obviously just give up hundreds of millions in revenue annually to a group(fighters) that is too stupid/lazy/cowardly to form a union.

Sure its an abominable business decision, but at least it would appease whiny ass fans & the media.
 
Keep at as is, at the end of the day they chose their situation.
 
JudoThrowFiasco said:
Do the nba players get 50% of all revenue or is the salary cap reflective of that 50% revenue but teams can elect to not go to the cap ceiling (genuinely asking). A lot of teams are not paying out to their limit nor are alot of teams spending 50% of their revenue on players... Looks like an average of around 30-35%. I would think that number would be fair for the UFC as well.

The other issue is roster size. 700+ roster on a 900 million dollar a year revenue organization. To put it context, Dallas cowboys make more a year and they have around 60 roster spots. The nba has 530ish players. So even if the UFC bumped up revenue split to 40-50%, and equally bumped up each fighter by an equal ration to the increased revnue share it would be a roughly 2.5 x increase -- which means low level guys probably still end up working at Walmart and Francis makes 1.5 million guaranteed on his next fight.

The best thing they could do is cut their roster size to 400, and up the split to 35%. More share of the pie and less mouths means bigger pay days.

Edit-- there's also the complex variable of fighters paid only when they fight. Obviously the revenue split to fighters as a percentage changes if the bigger stars don't fight that year or they fight frequently that year
Click to expand...

There is also a MINIMUM team salary
 
Have a set pay scale per rank (top 20) and establish a standard pay for everyone outside the top 20. Let the fighters have their own sponsors again. Make a separate org for wmma to dissolve it when their numbers predictably prove to be dogshit. Trim some serious fat from the roster. Increase champion pay per defense.
 
I think the fighters would be best served by forming a union; as long as they are negotiating as individuals against a big company they will continue to get the shitty end of the stick. The UFC is best served by the status quo, as they're keeping most of the money and their contracts with fighters are pretty one-sided in favour of the UFC.
 
Moving pay scale and more finish driven pay.

The 3/3 guy is moved.
1 to show.
3 for win
10 for finish.

Increase all contracts by the same percentage.

So the 30/30 guy gets
10 show
30 win
100 finish etc.
 
If I'm the UFC I'm keeping them hungry and starving better it seems once somebody gets some REAL money they stop being a savage and become a "let's make a deal" diva.

If I'm the fighters I want a bigger split. But my next question is say the fighters do get a profit sharing increase from 18% to say 40% who does it benefit? Are we talking about spreading the money out and raising the bottom or are we going to increase what the top fighters get and increase the ceiling and max out what top fighters make? Would you rather see a top MMA star get a $30 mil payday for main eventing or would you rather have the UFC minimum be 40K/40K across the board even for dark card fighters?
 
I would definitely reduce the roster to a set amount, possibly 25 per division, but tremendously improve pay to even be on the roster. Minum pay of 30/30 (or more) for undercard and 60/60 for main card. I would also setup expenses paid for fight camps and training, similar to virtually any sports league.

This would not only trim the fat, but create a highly competitive market for getting a spot on the roster. Make it more exclusive essentially, a true "best of the best". This would lead to a highly competitive battle for roster spots, thus better quality fighters. The additional expense would easily be off set by cutting and the eventual growth in revenue.

For fighters who are not quite there, UFC could have an off shoot smaller league to draw talent from that pays essentially the minimum that ufc appearances do now. Similar to the farming system that MLB clubs use.

Edit: Also, bring sponsors back. This combined with the above would actually start giving big incentives to attract top talent. Maybe one day kids will dream about being martial artist one day, and not home run sluggers.
 
I think a fighter's union would behoove the fighters and the UFC. I think it's shown in other sports when the league and the players are partners, everyone makes a fuckton of money. Although, I suppose it may be bad for the UFC in the short-term and it's definitely bad for the ACs, who would become almost superfluous
 
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