Collective bargaining would be untenable in the UFC

[Mr Fahrenheit]

There's no more big paydays. It died with the Entertainment Era. Welcome to the ESPN era where a fucking double champ has to beg Dana for money publicly.

How fucking pathetic is this.

The UFC is currently telling everyone and every manager to take a pay cut or pound sand while they shelve them. It's why so many fights were announced and why the UFC doesn't seem to have as much problem with fighters turning down fights atm.

But this is also why the UFC can't get big draws to show up anymore and has problems with minor draws. They are used to mid upper pay and are all told to take a paycut. Even having a belt is no longer a route to a big payday. Not even when you hold two.

The UFC is a joke.

Yet everyone keeps watching.

 

[Alpha_T83]

I don't think in most cases with major sports organizations that it's the players' unions demanding salary caps (they want minimums or floors for sure, but not maximums). Maybe that's what you meant when you said salary caps.

I mean, I don't know any pro athletes personally. You'd have to go ask NBA players what goes on behind closed doors within the NBPA.

From what I've heard from hockey (which is just rumors), the players definitely want maximum contracts and are hesitant when maximums are increased. This concern stems from Escrow, in which the yearly 'share' of the revenue for the players is estimated apriori. Part of the players pay is put into Escrow, and if the actual revenues fall short of the estimated revenues, then the players actually don't get their full contract money.

This is particularly problematic in hockey, where players sign long 8 year contracts. A megastar might sign a $10 million dollar AAV 8-year contract, but if the salary cap & maximum contract AAV rises 6 years later and teams overspend on free agents, they might actually end up losing some of that $10 million to Escrow recapture!

Thus, higher maximum salaries (or none) can seriously devalue long-term contracts. The shorter the contracts, the less the concern. This is why basketball has some of the highest salaries in pros sports (something like $50+ million now per year for supermax deals). Contracts are maxed at 5 years. In addition, most big stars get "player options" in their final year(s), in which they can "opt out" of their contracts. So if you're on a $30M AAV contract, and the salary cap rises dramatically with your $30M being slightly devalued, you exercise your player option to get out of that last year, and re-sign a new supermax deal.

For that reason, maximum salaries aren't nearly as big of an issue in basketball, and thus basketball has the highest maximum to minimum salary ratio.

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/escrow-players-nhl-labour-talks-1.5177705

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Let’s think through the consequences of having certain minimum salaries.....

The early prelim fights add basically nothing to the revenue the company earns from each event. If they had to pay each fighter $100,000 per appearance, do you imagine that they’d keep loading up these cards with guys you’ve never heard of? Of course not. All you’d accomplish is reducing the size of the roster.

 

[CerebralKnievel]

Conor has never made $50 million for a UFC fight, or anywhere near that.

 

[Sausage_Carius]

Yet everyone keeps watching.

Eh I mostly stopped. I'll check out a few fights here and there. I'll support my girl JJ and that's the end of that. When she retires I dunno if I'll keep watching. The community has too many dickheads and big personalities to really want to stay engaged. Almost everyone I know that used to watch the UFC is exactly that... used to. Nobody watches it anymore. Not for money anyway.

 

[Negator402]

Extending the Ali act to MMA is certainly the first step. As soon as fighters aren't tricked into having their contracts extended, more bidding wars will take place thus forcing the UFC to start treating fighters better. If every fighter can be gone within a years time that would be huge for the sport, management will think twice about insulting fighters.

Fool. It will be like boxing, with fighters spread across many promotions. Or the NFL, with soaring prices of attendance. Labor is not an ally of fans.

 

[Alpha_T83]

Let’s think through the consequences of having certain minimum salaries.....

The early prelim fights add basically nothing to the revenue the company earns from each event. If they had to pay each fighter $100,000 per appearance, do you imagine that they’d keep loading up these cards with guys you’ve never heard of? Of course not. All you’d accomplish is reducing the size of the roster.

Exactly. Even if the UFC agreed to some workable minimum salary ($25-50k) resulting in a 50/50 split of profits, it would still be a huge disaster for the top-end guys. Conor would definitely not be making $50 million to fight.

You could try to organize minimum salaries based on event slots, such as prelims vs televised prelims vs main card, and 'Fight Night' vs ESPN+ vs PPV. But that would be a bloody mess. And then you'd have to negotiate contracts guaranteeing spots on certain types of cards, and work that into the CBA.

No matter how you slice it, an MMA union would be a mess and a disaster. It would be better to just apply the Ali Act to MMA and put a maximum contract length of 1 year into effect. Then UFC fighters would be free to negotiate essentially bout-by-bout, and if they weren't happy they could take their services elsewhere.

What I just mentioned would actually make MMA fighters independent contractors, but it would require the UFC to give up control over sponsorship, and allow the athletes to retain the rights to their name, image, likeness, and all related advertising. The UFC simply refuse to do this right now. So we're sort of in limbo until something happens.

 

[Sausage_Carius]

Conor has never made $50 million for a UFC fight, or anywhere near that.

Technically he did but Dana then took half. What a piece of work.

That and them not wanting to pay Conor what he is worth... well any big fighter... is why he hasn't come back. I doubt he is injured. They have been telling him to pound sand for a while now. Conor isn't completely a moron.

 

[Alpha_T83]

Fool. It will be like boxing, with fighters spread across many promotions. Or the NFL, with soaring prices of attendance. Labor is not an ally of fans.

I do agree with you that unionization just wouldn't work in the UFC. It would be a disaster.

The Ali Act should be applied to the UFC, and it will become like boxing. That's the only workable solution for the fighters.

 

[Alpha_T83]

Technically he did but Dana then took half. What a piece of work.

That and them not wanting to pay Conor what he is worth... well any big fighter... is why he hasn't come back. I doubt he is injured. They have been telling him to pound sand for a while now. Conor isn't completely a moron.

I didn't hear about that? Did they really take half his money?

I agree that Conor isn't willing to fight without be paid his worth. And certainly if they took half his money, he probably won't even consider fighting again until they pay him that money back.

If I was in his position, as a matter of principle I wouldn't fight with them again until they paid me the money they owed me.

 

[ocfightfan]

The real problem with unionization is that, despite what it's critics would have you believe, the UFC is not a monopoly. How would signing and cutting fighters work? Do union members continue to have representation if they go to OneFC? And what about fighters in other orgs that are not in the union? The entire thing is a mess.

 

[Franklin U.]

In theory, t.s might be right but at end of day -the lifeline and popularity of sport extends well further and is even better for ownership- big picture. Talent more malleable in making career decision to come to UFC and who knows where future of PPV heads to in future..... maybe near future. There are alot more long term variables involved than what this is made out to be.

 

[Sausage_Carius]

I didn't hear about that? Did they really take half his money?

I agree that Conor isn't willing to fight without be paid his worth. And certainly if they took half his money, he probably won't even consider fighting again until they pay him that money back.

If I was in his position, as a matter of principle I wouldn't fight with them again until they paid me the money they owed me.

It's not official but Paulie openly talked about it. He was really fired up about it too but everyone told him to fuck off so he doesn't care anymore.

 

[Sausage_Carius]

I didn't hear about that? Did they really take half his money?

I agree that Conor isn't willing to fight without be paid his worth. And certainly if they took half his money, he probably won't even consider fighting again until they pay him that money back.

If I was in his position, as a matter of principle I wouldn't fight with them again until they paid me the money they owed me.

But he already fought since then. He got paid maybe 6 - 7.5mil for Khabib on the biggest PPV card in UFC history. He got ass raped there again. They probably want to pay him 1M or less. lol

 

[Alpha_T83]

The real problem with unionization is that, despite what it's critics would have you believe, the UFC is not a monopoly. How would signing and cutting fighters work? Do union members continue to have representation if they go to OneFC? And what about fighters in other orgs that are not in the union? The entire thing is a mess.

These issues are actually fairly easily solved. What I would imagine is that:

1) You cannot cut fighters except under specific circumstances (PED violations, criminal charges, mutual termination etc.). The NHL has similar provisions.
2) Fighters cannot fight for other organizations while under contract. When not under contract, they do not have union representation or voting power.
3) Contracts have a fixed # of fights and expire after X number of years. The UFC would be required to offer a specific # of fights per year to the fighter, and cannot extend the contract based on injury. The champions clause would be gone.
4) The UFC would likely retain the right to strip a champion without a contract after 6 months, if they do not re-sign. And any champions that fight in other organizations could be stripped immediately.

The bigger issue would be revenue sharing, and how the fighters would be given 50% of the revenues after costs. What would be the minimum salary? The maximum? Would revenues be shared with the fighters per event, or as a whole? If it is per event, then how is it determined which fighters get to fight on the high profile events? Do the fighters on the main card get paid more than the undercard? And if so, by how much? And again, how is it determined who gets to fight on the main card?

The amount of in-fighting would be insane once they started hashing out some of these details among themselves. It would be a mess.

 

[CerebralKnievel]

Technically he did but Dana then took half. What a piece of work.

That and them not wanting to pay Conor what he is worth... well any big fighter... is why he hasn't come back. I doubt he is injured. They have been telling him to pound sand for a while now. Conor isn't completely a moron.

That was a boxing match, not UFC.

 

[Sausage_Carius]

That was a boxing match, not UFC.

It doesn't matter what it was. Conor fought it while under contract with the UFC. His contract that allowed him to fight outside of the UFC cost him half his pay. As if the UFC made Conor.

 

[Kinger85]

There will never be a fighters union in my lifetime, and I plan on living another 50+ years.

 

[HHJ]

We need @FrankieNYC in these kinda threads.

 

[Negator402]

I do agree with you that unionization just wouldn't work in the UFC. It would be a disaster.

The Ali Act should be applied to the UFC, and it will become like boxing. That's the only workable solution for the fighters.

No, for two reasons.

1, boxing has a larger market share globally. It can survive the Ali Act. The UFC IS mma. Break up their monopsony, and its game over.

2, average fighters earn less in boxing. The many belt, many promoter system benefits the very top end of fighters.

Finally, the fighters can frankly eat a dick. It is bad for fans, and as a fan, I care about that more. I am not here to be their earning source.