Do fighters get a cut of the live gate?

[Darth Nevets]

Well there you go

Gate is more important that even I thought!

Unfortunately you are not well versed in live promotion. Any UFC event, especially a PPV card, will sell out on the strength of the brand and there won't be much gain in ticket prices. PPV is way where the money is at, and it is a TIERED system. Meaning at each level of draw the PPV provider takes less (at the first 70k buys they traditionally take it all). A PPV drawing 4x the buys doesn't make 4x the cash it makes twenty times or more.

This is why Bellator doesn't do quarterly PPVs because many PPVs are losers in the UFC and not even worth having. Now 203 did make in the low tens of millions of profit but almost none of that was due to Stipe because Mio's last show drew 217k with a stronger card (a horrifying low figure). It was CM Punk who made that a big show and not a loser, the gap is unbelievable. There are 65 UFC PPVs that drew in the gap between 198 and 203.

 

[platypus44]

I just read a great thread from @frandie2b around Stipe Miocic's comments on his own pay.

It got me thinking...

PPV points/percentage

It's well documented that champions (automatically) get some PPV "points", but I'm presuming that the % depends on how much of a draw that person is e.g. Ronda Rousey as a champion was probably getting a good percentage, whilst Amanda Nunes probably doesn't get as large a percentage (I can only presume).

Some non-champions inevitably get PPV "points" also. Examples of this would be Conor McGregor when he fought Chad Mendes, or Chael Sonnen when he fought Anderson Silva. I have no facts to back this up, but using common sense you would hope that the main component of promotion would get some of the PPV cut, seeming as he/she sold the PPV.

Live gate?

So that brings me to this important question: "Do the fighters get any cut of the live gate?"

I ask this because if they don't, they most definitely should.

All you ever hear from the UFC brass and Sherdoggers alike are criticisms over someone's drawing power. Essentially if Stipe Miocic does not sell PPVs then he isn't a "big draw", same would go for someone like Fabricio Werdum who had his request for more money shut down lately.

Wait a minute, did Fabricio not headline an event which sold 45,000 tickets!? Didn't Stipe sell out an arena in Cleveland which has almost 19,000 seats? Someone is coming to watch them, a lot of people actually.

PPVs cost $50 from what I'm aware, you'd be lucky to find 1 seat in an arena for a UFC PPV which is $50. These guys are not only selling PPVs, but putting asses in seats. I understand that they are not selling millions of PPVs and I don't expect them to get McGregor money, but throw a dog a bone man.

Let me know, do they actually get a cut and if so do we know a ball-park percentage?

The contracts I have seen give the top fighters a set $ amount per PPV over a certain minimum. That is, "$2 per PPV over 150,000" - I would not be surprised if the big payouts (like Ronda's $3 million) are against a PPV draw. In other words she gets something like either $3 million or $4 per PPV over 200,000, whichever is more. So in low PPV fights, the PPV pay out may not be very much. Also - only the top main event fighters get PPV $.
The UFC has a lot of costs of promotional and video production that they have to cover before they can throw money around.