***Comparing UFC pay to Golfers***

[AnotherOldGuy]

We can't compare UFC fighters to any of the top tier sports, that would not be fair for a number of reasons (A level vs. D level). In all seriousness the North American big 4 leagues are team oriented sports, with players unions, whereas UFC fighters are all individual contractors which is most like golfers and tennis players.

The median income for FEMALE golfers on the LPGA tour (not even counting men on the PGA tour) is $141K, that's factoring in everyone. If you look at the top 10 percent of FEMALE golfers, it's $1.3M

https://work.chron.com/salary-range-women-pro-golfers-2627.html

"According to the most recent LPGA money list, the median income for all players is $141,428. The top 10 percent of players earned a median of $1,320,900 and played in at least 20 tournaments. The lowest 10 percent only brought in $5,924 and may have only played in 10 to 15 tournaments. Median means that half of the players earned more than this amount and half earned less."

This other link talks about a typical #50th best golfer in the world for both men and women, in terms of cash flow:
https://golfweek.usatoday.com/2020/01/11/truth-behind-tournament-paychecks-pga-tour-lpga/

Men #50 take home pay: $1.27M

Women #50 take home pay: $182K


I'm going to take the top 10 in each of the UFC weight classes
https://www.ufc.com/rankings


Men's FlyW: Tim Elliot i'm going to be generous he made $89K in his latest fight, and assume he will have another payday like that in 2021. $178K pre tax, assume taxes of 30%, manager 10%, trainer 10%
Take home pay: $89K
7% compared to top 50 male golfer
71% compared to top 50 female golfer

he could exceed that if he had a 3rd win in the year

Men's BW: Raphael Assuncao
https://www.sportekz.com/mma/raphael-assuncao-net-worth/
$1.35M pre tax gross from 2016 to 2020

Men's FW: Arnold Allen
https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/fighters/23359-arnold-allen
Pre tax gross career earnings $164K


Men's LW: Paul Felder
https://thesportsdaily.com/2020/11/14/paul-felder-career-earnings-fox11/
$1.15M pre tax gross covering from 2014 to 2020

Men's WW: Vicente Luque just came off the biggest win of his career, so maybe his future is bright?

https://thesportsdaily.com/2021/03/28/vicente-luque-career-earnings-fox11/
$1.7M Pre tax gross, starting out in 2015 let's say his take home pay after all that time is $1M still less than 1 year of a top 50 male golfer's pay

Men's MW: Kevin Holland
https://mmasalaries.com/kevin-holland-career-earnings-net-worth-and-info/
got a big jump in pay for his Jacare fight, but just lost a fight as the main event guy, suffering a set back. In total pre tax gross of $900K since March 2019. Net pay assumption ~450K for 2 years

Men's LHW: Johnny Walker
https://thesportsdaily.com/2020/09/19/johnny-walker-career-earnings-fox11/
Career earnings $495K, net that out to $250K since Nov 2018
So he's basically taking home a little less than the 50th rank LPGA golfer

Men's HW: Chris Daukaus
https://www.sportekz.com/mma/ufc-252-salaries-purse-payouts/
https://www.sportekz.com/mma/ufc-252-salaries-purse-payouts/
let's just say he hasn't made very much for being


Overall i knew MMA fighters made way less than golfer, but this is really glaring, and even comparing to female LPGA golfers they're still behind.

Golf is one of the more popular sports in the world, both in terms of participation and viewership. They have a channel devoted just to it. They have golf courses all over the world with thousands of people playing regularly on each. People spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on golf equipment. There are even more people playing golf video games than MMA video games.

Me, I think Bernard Shaw's observation that "golf is an expensive way of ruining a perfectly good walk" is right, and watching it on TV is like watching paint dry. But I know that its far more popular than MMA (despite what Dana might tell you), so of course its going to pay better.

 

[RiseAboveHat]

One is an elite A level sport

The other is glorified human cockfighting

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

A-level athletes for hitting a ball with a stick? Damn Sherbro, hope you're being sarcastic as fokk.

The usual argument on Sherdog is that the best athletes go into the best paying sports (that's the reason given for say the NBA and NFL having better athletes). Golf at the high end is right up there with them in terms of pay, so presumably it draws the best athletes as well.

On a more serious note, a major component of athleticism is coordination (ask any coach if they'd rather have an averagely coordinated guy with incredible explosiveness, or an incredibly coordinated guy with average explosiveness, and you'll find that in most sports they'll take the incredibly coordinated guy nine times out of ten). High level golf (and I say this as someone who has no use for the game) takes incredible coordination.

 

[The Chosen]

Dana and company are straight up crooks, we know this, yet we still watch and love the UFC fights, what does that make us as fans...?

They have a monopoly on MMA so we kind of have to

 

[LoneStalker]

Tiger Woods would DESTROY Ngannou at a golf course. Total annihilation.

 

[reviv4l]

The usual argument on Sherdog is that the best athletes go into the best paying sports (that's the reason given for say the NBA and NFL having better athletes). Golf at the high end is right up there with them in terms of pay, so presumably it draws the best athletes as well.

On a more serious note, a major component of athleticism is coordination (ask any coach if they'd rather have an averagely coordinated guy with incredible explosiveness, or an incredibly coordinated guy with average explosiveness, and you'll find that in most sports they'll take the incredibly coordinated guy nine times out of ten). High level golf (and I say this as someone who has no use for the game) takes incredible coordination.

To be honest- I understand all of that, but for me combat>>>>>>>>>>hitting a ball with a stick, that's all. Combat>most sports actually, as it's the most useful form of physical activity.

 

[The Chosen]

A-level athletes for hitting a ball with a stick? Damn Sherbro, hope you're being sarcastic as fokk.

Golfing is arguably much more refined than MMA at this moment

 

[The Chosen]

Tiger Woods would DESTROY Ngannou at a golf course. Total annihilation.

With $70 PPV cost that prevents people from seeing Ngannou fight, Tiger Woods destroys pretty much every MMA fighter in terms of bank account as well

 

[reviv4l]

Golfing is arguably much more refined than MMA at this moment

We could argue about it not even being a sport, but that'd be a waste of our time.

 

[DM1982]

this is true, however you don't have to worry about CTE in golf

Unless you're getting a lift from Tiger

 

[NikLuk]

Dana and company are straight up crooks, we know this, yet we still watch and love the UFC fights, what does that make us as fans...?

I know it’s popular to believe this today, but you should check how much top mma fighters made before these “crooks” and how much the best mma fighters make today thanks to these “crooks”.

 

[Seismic]

For those doubting golf being harder than MMA. Tiger Woods, the GOAT of golf, loses over 90% of the time. Golf is not only harder than MMA, it is the most difficult of all sports.

 

[Oblivian]

To be honest- I understand all of that, but for me combat>>>>>>>>>>hitting a ball with a stick, that's all. Combat>most sports actually, as it's the most useful form of physical activity.

"hitting a ball with a stick". You can belittle any sport by saying things like "throwing a ball through a hoop". The fact is that golf is infinitely more difficult to make it to the big leagues vs. MMA. I don't see this changing anytime soon, and in fact, the barrier to entry to the UFC is lowering with the huge roster and DWCS.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

disregard that "throwaway comment"

the baddest men on the planet, make less than female golfers

More people are willing to pay to watch female golfers, so of course they get paid more.

 

[Truk]

Golf is a finesse sport like darts or some shit like that. Mastering one movement isn't the same as trying to get to that same master level with all the different techniques involved in MMA. Anyone who says golf is harder is just pumping up their sport.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Indeed. It's a bad comparison.

It's not about absolute figures. It's about revue sharing. The players in the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB get roughly half of the revenue. The revenue dictates how much the players can make. The issue with the UFC is that the fighters only get 20% among them.

Yeah, agreed. I'm not business minded enough to know if 50% of revenue is some magical sweet spot, or whether the UFC has larger expenses than some of the bigger leagues in terms of percentage of revenue. Regardless, 20% is low. Seems like the UFC could double the payout to every fighter and still be making money. They won't do that, of course, unless they have to. It's just human nature. The fighters need to organize if they want their due, imo. Every other solution is worse.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

To be honest- I understand all of that, but for me combat>>>>>>>>>>hitting a ball with a stick, that's all. Combat>most sports actually, as it's the most useful form of physical activity.

I guess, though for humans combat means weapons, and has for two hundred thousand years. We'd still be bear and lion food if we fought unarmed. Unarmed fighting simply isn't particularly useful for humans. Fighting with weapons is, but tends to require very different skills and abilities than fighting unarmed (coordination and agility for instance becomes much more important with weapons, since suddenly everyone has one shot killing power). Moreover, the ability to work as a team becomes vital in real combat (as they drill into the recruits of every branch of the military), but is non-existent in MMA.

In fact, its fairly easy to argue that one of the reasons for the popularity of team sports is that they reward working as a team, something that's been vital in human combat (and hunting) for hundreds of thousands of years. In that regard, a sport like rugby is closer to real battle than individual combat sports.

And specialization has been vital in human combat for thousands of years (archers, chariot drivers, foot soldiers etc). A sport like football (American) or baseball, where everyone specializes, is closer to real combat in that regard than MMA. Now team MMA would be much more applicable to real combat, but it doesn't seem to have caught on, and still lacks weapons.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

With $70 PPV cost that prevents people from seeing Ngannou fight, Tiger Woods destroys pretty much every MMA fighter in terms of bank account as well

Not just pretty much. He's worth $800 million (according to Forbes), I suspect he destroys the top ten MMA fighters combined in terms of bank account.

 

[reviv4l]

I guess, though for humans combat means weapons, and has for two hundred thousand years. We'd still be bear and lion food if we fought unarmed. Unarmed fighting simply isn't particularly useful for humans. Fighting with weapons is, but tends to require very different skills and abilities than fighting unarmed (coordination and agility for instance becomes much more important with weapons, since suddenly everyone has one shot killing power). Moreover, the ability to work as a team becomes vital in real combat (as they drill into the recruits of every branch of the military), but is non-existent in MMA.

In fact, its fairly easy to argue that one of the reasons for the popularity of team sports is that they reward working as a team, something that's been vital in human combat (and hunting) for hundreds of thousands of years. In that regard, a sport like rugby is closer to real battle than individual combat sports.

And specialization has been vital in human combat for thousands of years (archers, chariot drivers, foot soldiers etc). A sport like football (American) or baseball, where everyone specializes, is closer to real combat in that regard than MMA. Now team MMA would be much more applicable to real combat, but it doesn't seem to have caught on, and still lacks weapons.

If that's the case, then below is THE sport (teamwork?check>combat?check):

 

[Oblivian]

Golf is a finesse sport like darts or some shit like that. Mastering one movement isn't the same as trying to get to that same master level with all the different techniques involved in MMA. Anyone who says golf is harder is just pumping up their sport.

Lol - I love how people are really this clueless. This is why betting on MMA one of the easiest sports to bet on. You are betting against people like this.