Is fighter pay really that bad? Ronaldo new contract for 21 million a year

[ADCC]

Cristiano Ronaldo just signed a new contract for 21 million EUR a year.

When I read that John Jones missed out on 10 million and McGregor making close to those numbers as well would a 2/3 times a year title defense not put you in the same range in the current market of the UFC. I know GSP and Silva made around 5 million per fight but times have changed.

And don't most soccer players also have till 35 years old? Yes of course that does not compare to the hundreds of 20/20 fighters but also not every soccer player makes Ronaldo money.

Fire away!

 

[SalvadorAllende]

Ronaldo makes more money with sponsors... UFC fighters have Reebok.

Plus mid tier soccer players make millions too... midtiers MMA fighter have second jobs.

 

[Cro Cop Is Back]

Conor changed his bum life

 

[Gendry]

Ronaldo makes more money with sponsors... UFC fighters have Reebok.

Plus mid tier soccer players make millions too... midtiers MMA fighter have second jobs.

Soccer is a money pit. Almost all of these teams lose money or are in debt. Yet these teams still throw ridiculous money at players. That is because it is a prestige business. If you own a soccer team you better not worry about your bottom line. It is a game for the rich to waste money and glory hunt. The fact the most successful soccer teams in the world also carry so much debt should tell you something.

MMA is built around independent contractors who are paid based on drawing power. Totally different business. Also, the sponsorship money in soccer is far greater than MMA can ever dream of. Since MMA is basically UFC to 99% of the world and that is the only real platform for sponsors to get their name out there. You are not going to get much return as a sponsor signing WSOF and Bellator fighters.

 

[Roljo]

Cristiano Ronaldo just signed a new contract for 21 million EUR a year.

When I read that John Jones missed out on 10 million and McGregor making close to those numbers as well would a 2/3 times a year title defense not put you in the same range in the current market of the UFC. I know GSP and Silva made around 5 million per fight but times have changed.

And don't most soccer players also have till 35 years old? Yes of course that does not compare to the hundreds of 20/20 fighters but also not every soccer player makes Ronaldo money.

Fire away!

even if the pay was the same (which is furthest thing from reality), there is permanent brain/body damage in mma

 

[manboy<3]

in soccer there are hundreds of clubs around the world that can offer million dollar contracts and thousands of clubs that can offer 100k+ contracts while in MMA you only get the UFC

the UFC is basically a circus act with most clowns getting paid very little to take brain damage for our entertainment and some of the more popular clowns getting "decent" money until they get brutally KO'd a few times and get cut. Lately the clowns also have to wear reebok

player wages make up 50 to 90% of a soccer clubs budget while making up 5% for the UFC

MMA is basically exploitation and thats why I like it

 

[Kowboy On Sherdog]

You have Brock who made millions off of one fight and then you have up an comers that barely make thousands. Sucks for mma fighters that their promotions make all the money.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

Brock can pull in a million PPV's and he makes $5 million per fight. I don't believe that Jon makes twice that, or Conor either. That's just hype to make those fights/fighters seem more important than they are.

 

[Kinger85]

I long ago stopped caring about fighters bitching about their pay.

 

[mst-dot]

Brock can pull in a million PPV's and he makes $5 million per fight. I don't believe that Jon makes twice that, or Conor either. That's just hype to make those fights/fighters seem more important than they are.

brock made betwwen 12 and 15 for hunt

 

[Meathead Jock]

brock made betwwen 12 and 15 for hunt

How big was his fine?

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

brock made betwwen 12 and 15 for hunt

http://www.mmamania.com/2016/7/11/1...ck-lesnar-bags-2-5-million-mark-hunt-700k-mma

He was paid $2.5 million for his fight, plus PPV bonus.

Let's assume he sold 1 million PPV's again. He would have to be making $10 per PPV sale for his total pay to be $12.5 million or more.

The UFC usually pays anywhere from $1-3 per PPV buy, last I heard. The UFC themselves make $30 a PPV, I find it very hard to believe that they would give a single fighter 1/3rd of the PPV revenue for the entire event. Why would they pay that much? Zuffa have excellent negotiators and they have all the leverage because Conor/Jones have no where else to go.

Did you notice that a bunch of writers wrote articles about Conor and all his fancy cars. His car collection was worth $5 million or something crazy like that. He wasn't even the champ at at the time. Well it turns out they were all rentals, they (either Conor or Zuffa) were deceptively making Conor look like he's loaded...

If it was Zuffa, who used one of those media lobbyist groups to What else is Zuffa doing to try and make it seem like they pay good.

If it was Conor, then he wasted a good chunk of his earnings on renting a mansion and fancy cars. It's possible but despite the abrasive personality that Conor puts on for the show, he's a smart guy. Smart enough to know better than that. Also his GF travels with him everywhere, which could mean two things, a) he's a honourable man or b) He doesn't necessarily wear the pants in the relationship.

If it's A then he's not the kind of man who needs to waste his money to impress others. It benefits his job to seem rich and cool, but would he really get that many cars if it was just to impress people. 5 sick cars just wasn't enough... I don't buy that.

If it's B, then Dee would probably stop him from wasting all their money like that. If it's A then Dee would also stop him from blowing his money, because an honourable man like that would listen to his wife.

I think Conor wanted to be like Floyd, and UFC liked the idea so they rented him a mansion and got him a bunch of fancy cars and suits. Then they hired one of those P.R. lobbying groups that they like to hire and encourage writers to write about how loaded Conor is. McGregor gets a free ride in several fancy cars, with a mansion to boot, and Zuffa get the illusion of really taking care of their elite fighters...

UFC is known to be full of shit, Conor is known to be full of shit (apart from that one candid interview he did with Ariel where he was only slightly in-character)

 

[MilesAbove]

I know it's a bit of apples/oranges, but the average salary for the top 25 countries in the soccer/football world make over 100,000 British-pounds (prior to recent plunge in value). League 2 in the EPL ladder (3rd league down in the hierarchy) make an average of 69,000 pounds a year.

 

[KOfinger]

Sorry, Ronaldo makes 90 million with sponsors....

 

[original doom]

Comparing individual fighters to team juggernauts does not make sense.

How many people buy team gear. Same goes for NFL NBA gear. Not to mention fashion wise they have got tapout well an truly covered.

 

[skylolow]

brock made betwwen 12 and 15 for hunt

Chances are Brock made more in that 5 to 6 million range and that is about it.

Back on topic, stars make good money. We as fans want the curve of pay to increase much quicker than it does. As revenue has grown for the UFC so has fighters pay. It just doesn't happen over night like fans want it to. People forget that we are only 10-11 years into this with the UFC making money. Many sports it took decades before there athletes didn't have to work in the off season and only in the last 35 years or so have the major sports had good minimum wages. Just takes time to build it all up. You can't blow your wad just because you had a good run for a few years. Remember we aren't that far removed from 3K/3K as the minimum.

 

[007]

Can't compare the two sports. Soccer gets billions for tv deals and sponsors

 

[Hi-Tech]

Combat sports are top heavy, there is money to be made when you're on top but otherwise you're getting paid little unless you're popular for some reason or have some backing.

Football is a team sport where you need to pay a roster of circa 22 elite players in regular rotation plus dozens of youth players and reserves. Elite football coaches also have huge salaries (Guardiola will earn 15 millions pounds a year in Manchester City, Mourinho 10 millions at United) and they have their technical team around them that needs to get paid too (for example their assistant coaches and scouts who are sent all over the world to discover talented players). They also need to pay the medical stuff, the physiotherapists, maintain the stadium, the training facilities and youth academy and so on.

Ronaldo can't be paid that much higher than the other players because realistically even when he's a really great player he's not worth the salary of say 3 elite players put together because say Modrić, Casemiro and Ramos together are worth much more to the team than just Ronaldo. In MMA on the other hand Conor is probably worth more to the UFC than all the lightweights put together.

However when you're a real "draw" in football you can earn tons of money through sponsorship deals.

 

[Hi-Tech]

Soccer is a money pit. Almost all of these teams lose money or are in debt. Yet these teams still throw ridiculous money at players. That is because it is a prestige business. If you own a soccer team you better not worry about your bottom line. It is a game for the rich to waste money and glory hunt. The fact the most successful soccer teams in the world also carry so much debt should tell you something.

Most of the clubs have healthy financial structures, especially in the recent years. They have big revenues and are able to cover those expenses. Also, there is more and more money in football every year so throwing some money at players is a good investment as in a few years time you'll get everything back if you're still on top. Young talented players that were worth 10 millions 5 years ago are now easily worth 40 million + had they developed as expected and reached their potential. The clubs that went into debt at that time to buy legit talents have more likely than not profited from that strategy today.

For example German club Schalke had something over 100 million or so of debt back in 2010 which seemed ridiculously high at the time and it's only 6 years back. That year they had to sell their best player Neuer (who is a goalkeeper for German national team that won the world cup and one of the best goalkeepers in history of football) for 20 million € . But in the last few years there has been such a big influx of money in football that the best players are worth twice as much. Last year Schalke sold one of their talented players for 40 millions and this year they sold another talented player for around 40 millions too. So basically just selling two players would have covered like a third of a debt that seemed atronomically high just 5 years ago.

The only clubs that throw money on players like crazy are clubs with rich investors.

 

[EndlessCritic]

even if the pay was the same (which is furthest thing from reality), there is permanent brain/body damage in mma

you do realize soccer is like the only sport on the planet where the players intentionally headbutt an object right?