Jose Aldo Made $5 Million for UFC 194

[Mikedh]

gotcha. Though it may seem like it so far, I am not particularly an Aldo fan. He's...I don't know. I don't think I can come up with a way to describe him that won't get me dubbed. haha!

I simply think it's funny that posters/people think he should thank Conor after the disrespect Conor showed him. That's all.

He should want to KO Conor. They are just being facetious because did end up making him a ton of money.

But yeah, he should still want to knock his face off. I get what you are saying there.

 

[Team Sleep]

Big pay day? Wtf, that's chump change compared to boxers. What did McGregor make 10 mill?

For all that media work? Chump change.

All but the very best boxers will make less than 5 mil per fight. They don't make what people think they do.

 

[SlicerDM]

Indeed, boxing did establish a more equitable pay structure than MMA has now. But in 1906 boxing was already a well established sport, and you seem bent on ignoring that. Boxing world champions were known and accepted, and the sport already had a following. Promotion was likely far cheaper and certainly easier than selling a PPV today since the number of people who could attend an event (with gate being the only real source of revenue for an event) being limited to those who were able to travel to the event.


Licenses, insurances, legal teams, network/PPV distributor cuts, promoter's expenses due to pushing into new markets, expensive production values....none of these issues existed in the days of Sharkey and Jeffries. So again, comparing boxing - especially from a completely diffrent era - to MMA doesn't really work.


I'm fairly sure we actually agree on the basic point that the UFC should be paying its fighters more. But when people trot out numbers like 50% of revenue I have to shake my head. The company would not survive were it to attempt that sort of remuneration.

You can't say that without breaking down the numbers.

 

[Sharkey]

A lot to get through there, and I wont have time to give a response that would do your post justice for a bit, sadly. Just a couple of quick things:

I must've misread the 1906 date - I was forced to read your link on my phone and I guess I made a mistake since Sharkey/Jeffries II was held in 1899. There was zero accusation there anyway. I was simply observing that world boxing champions were recognised for some time prior to Jeffries/Sharkey, boxing may not have been smiled upon universally but that hardly means it was a small-time sport. Your own post highlights some astronomical gate takings for that time - clearly they was a well paying audience.

You still haven't really addressed the large costs associated with staging an event for the UFC, aside from the venue/production which still ignores the diabolical rate charged by PPV distributors, medical, licensing, legal fees etc. Critically, the UFC is expending time and money in trying to expand MMA, money which they mayn't see returned for a significant time, or ever. I strongly doubt any boxing promoter from the late 19th or early 20th centuries spent the money the UFC does on this except in extremely rare cases such as the building of stadiums mentioned in your post. I suspect those are the notable exceptions.

The (extremely interesting and well researched, kudos and thank you for that) information about boxing fights being moved around - while fascinating - really isn't relevant to either the issue of fighter pay in the UFC or in disproving that the UFC and boxing are at very different stages in their maturity as sports and therefore pay structure will be significantly different.


May I ask (since you're clearly pretty smart): do you believe Aldo receiving $5m was a fair sum for his work up to and including the fight at UFC 194? If not, why? And what would be a fair sum? Since sources suggest McGregor earned significantly more (approx $12m US), what about his pay?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

I touched on a little bit of of that stuff by saying that those old boxing promoters wouldn't have to deal with some of the costs the UFC would have have to deal with today as far as legal representation, licensing fees and the like, but I also mentioned that, unlike the UFC, the promoters back then didn't have all the financial support when it comes to putting on an event either. When you're seeing advertisement for a UFC card with an event sponsors name prominently displayed during it you can be sure that that sponsor is covering some, most or maybe even all the costs when it comes to that particular piece of marketing. Same with PPV providers, they're not just sitting back behind the scenes and showing the UFC card and getting all their money because of that. They have to work for it and invest in marketing the event for their 50% share. PPV providers probably don't have a set percentage from event to event either, as that can and does fluctuate depending on what marketing option the UFC and the providers agree to before the event. It's not 50/50 unless they agree to it, in which case the providers are taking the full marketing option which in turn sees them responsible for a larger share of the costs associated with marketing the event. In the boxing world nowadays, the UFC very, very likely gets a bigger split of the gross PPV revenue because they don't have to deal with a third party like HBO or Showtime, who get a standard 10% when it comes to gross PPV revenue, although they have been known to take a lesser percentage (say 6% or 7%) if it's one of those million plus PPV buys in boxing. So while the UFC may have a 50/50 split with providers a boxing promotion sees it split 45/45/10. In exchange for that 10% HBO or Showtime will cover the production costs, cover any expenses they'll have in terms of their own marketing or whatever, and should still have enough left over for them to make a decent profit. That extra 5% that the UFC receives should be enough to cover any production costs that a boxing promoter doesn't deal with save for the lowest selling ones. The out of pocket marketing costs for an event for the UFC would obviously fluctuate from month to month, but Dana White is on record saying that they took a $2 million hit in marketing costs for the cancelled UFC 151. That's not an insignificant amount, but it's also not a huge expense by itself. UFC 151 wouldn't have done a huge buyrate, but it probably would have done better than average with Jon Jones main eventing the card. I'm sure the UFC has spent more in marketing some cards, as I'm sure they paid less. Many of the expenses associated with a UFC card or also associated with a modern boxing card. Licensing fees, insurance, taxes, etc, etc, right down to the clean up crew. The promotions in both sports are responsible for many of the exact same things when it comes to putting on events and the difference in total costs are probably pretty insignificant if we could somehow look at the books and total everything up.

As far as the UFC spending money to expand, that's an expense out of luxury rather than one out of necessity. They're choosing to do so and their also choosing to do so while at the same time bragging (supporters) about how big they are already. Is the UFC a sport that can't afford to pay their fighters like their boxing brethen can? Or are they a sport that's already "neck and neck with soccer" on a global scale? Dana is on record saying both those things on occassion, so what it is? He can't have it both ways? And when does this need to keep growing stop if it ever does?

To answer your last question, lets see; 1.2 million buys and a $10 million gate. Assuming a 50/50 split with providers and that the UFC is keeping that gate instead of taking an up front site fee from the MGM, that's what, about $45 million. With such other revenue streams like event sponsorship, international broadcast rights, merchandising and things like that, we're probably seeing the UFC gross well over $50 million from that event. McGregor's last fight before that did an estimated 825,000 buys with a $7.2 million gate. Couple that revenue with some of the other stream mentioned above and we might be looking at something in the $35 million range or just above (I'd imagine international rights were quite a bit less for McGregor-mendes than for McGregor-Aldo). Yeah, I'd say both were underpaid if those numbers are accurate. McGregor was the draw in that Aldo fight and while his stock may have went up from the Mendes fight it never went up to the tune of more than $15 million. Aldo himself was bringing a whole lot of value to that fight in the Aldo-McGregor matchup and as the reigning champion. Not as much as McGregor obviously. But I don't think it's fair to just look at Aldo's previous PPV buyrates and say he deserved so much because they only sold so much. I mean, look at Mayweather's PPV history before De La Hoya. His PPV buy rates were in the 350,000 range whereas Oscar sold a number of PPVs in the million range and above. They were also fighting for a title that Oscar was holding at the time unlike with the bigger draw in McGregor. Oscar was outdrawing Floyd on a 3 or 4 to 1 rate on PPV and was also the defending titleholder, but they agreed to a 2/1 split in favour of Oscar because it was the matchup itself that was largely responsible for it selling 2.5 million PPVs. There's plenty of examples like that in boxing and I think McGregor-Aldo is one in MMA. McGregor may have been a significantly bigger PPV draw than Aldo was, but I see that fight as the matchup itself that drew most of those PPV buys and because he was the reigning champion going in, I think Aldo probably deserved better than the 1/2 split that Mayweather got vs Oscar. Maybe 60/40 in favour of McGregor or thereabouts. A championship has to have some financial value to a fighter in a matchup beyond simply looking at previously drawing power. You're devaluing the championship otherwise. So yeah, I think somewhere in the ballpark of $15 million for McGregor and $10 million for Aldo would be a good start. People were buying McGregor vs Aldo that night. Not the UFC card. I think pay should have reflected that and I think those purses would still allow the UFC to pay off whatever expenses they had and still allow them to make a seven figure profit.

 

[Snergle]

Big pay day? Wtf, that's chump change compared to boxers. What did McGregor make 10 mill?

For all that media work? Chump change.

Hahahaha I remember how much shit you talked pre-fight, sad to see you coming from that angle now.

 

[SlicerDM]

Hahahaha I remember how much shit you talked pre-fight, sad to see you coming from that angle now.

The fuck are you talking about? I'm lobbying for more money for both of these fighters. Throw down substance or walk out white belt.

 

[Kalo]

Man you just take all this SOOOO seriously don't you, there must be steam coming out of your ears.

Calm down you pathetic individual.

You must be a retard then