News Matt Brown argues ‘if anybody is to blame for fighter pay, it’s the fighters"

[Mmmmmmma1234]

I'm not generally a fan of unions, but in this case a UFC fighters union is really needed, similar to other big sports leagues.

Yeah until they're united especially the major players and champions nothing will change in the UFC. But everyone at the top is easily bought off to not join in this. Nobody cares about the other fighters.

 

[Tweak896]

No one is going to like this, but at the end of the day UFC and fighters sign contracts to meet in the middle. You have other orgs who over pay to get UFC guys, so they aren't helpless babies.

Sure there needs to be a fight for more change, but also you have to benefit both parties. I was thinking the best solution is fighters should have a 3 fight guarantee per year if they get a huge boost, would fix lots of what's wrong. 1 or 2 fights a year is stupid.

 

[don't ask]

Your asking the wild hungry tiger to not attack you in the jungle and then asking the caged domesticated tiger to not attack you. Then are surprised when they both do. Even though the domesticated tiger shouldn't based on its history. But in the end they are tigers and will attack you.

This is nonsense.

Very few businesses in any society pay fairly to the point that most would agree they are doing it right and fairly from top to bottom. Personally, I can't think of one and I'm not talking about some rich dude opens some side business and takes a 50K salary and splits all the profits with the employees. That is an anomaly in the business world in any country.

Not all countries allow businesses to be equally as damaging. Some countries are far better than their counterparts.

Bigger the business usually the less fair it is and always will be. Is this right or wrong, I don't know. I own a business and I feel I pay my employees very well in this field compared to my competitors. Could I pay them more and still be profitable, with out a doubt. But at the end of the day I got to make sure the business is strong into the future and that is more important than any single employee or all the employees, including myself. I'm taking all the risk and need to be compensated for it all or it isn't worth my time and effort. I got 30 families counting on me to make the right decisions every day for the business so that business exists in the future.

You're philosophizing so you don't have to look at real world solutions that have been developed to solve this problem. As your post goes on, I'm not even sure you know what the problem is.

We all say the fighters are getting screwed. But are they really in the business world???? If every burger place is paying $12 to $15/hr to flip burgers why would any burger place pay $20 dollars if they financially could easily afford to do so? McDonalds revenue is literally 25B a year and Burger King is like 2B. They both pay very similar to one another in each market. Does that make McDonalds more greedy??? On surface I guess yes, reality maybe not when you figure in all the cost of each business. Though I can tell you McDonalds franchises are usually more profitable than Burger King in each market. We can all agree the UFC pays more per a fighter than any other MMA org. so there is no reason for the UFC adjust how they do business. Fighters want more, then they have to fight for it. In the world of sports your dealing with very highly skilled individuals and there is only so many of them to go around. They can leverage against the big bad corporate enterprise much so more than the dude pressing a button on the assembly line.

You're going deep into thought in your imagination and avoiding all knowledge of the actual issue. Do you actually know anything about what makes businesses damaging to consumers, employees and society? Do you know what different countries have done to address these problems?

Businesses thrive when they make big profits. Making 10% profit or just getting by they struggle(like many small businesses). Big profits is what allows the business to expand and grow and continue to employ people.

You have such a simple take on the matter I can't tell if you don't know anything about it or are comforted by talking points.

 

[don't ask]

they are making record profits because they keep hiking up the price.

As well as driving down the payments to the fighters, but what does your comment have to do with my comment.

 

[brainstormsounds]

“It’s hard to expect the UFC to just be completely fair about it,”

What he really means was,

“Its easier to accept that the UFC to just be unfair about it,”


“They’re running a business, and they run it very f*cking well.
“Theyve minimized fighter pay to their maximum benefit, and they done it very f*cking well”


“They’ve done an amazing job building their business.”
“Theyve done an amazing job exploiting the lack of fighter unity as theyre a unified org vs fighters.”


“ I think 99 percent of people in their shoes would be doing very similar to what they’re doing."
“I haven’t explained “what theyre doing” very well but oddly I’m sure 99 percent of people would being doing these things I havent described”


“Does that make it right? That’s up to each person to decide on their own.”
“Can you define the “it” Im vaguely referencing here? Can’t define it as Im not really speaking in detail, you’ll see why next sentence.”



“I think it’s just way more complex than people give it credit for.”
“Remember its WAY more complex”



“If anybody is to blame for fighter pay, it’s the fighters and I’m one of them, at least formerly,”
“But yet I say its the fighters who are responsible in this WAY more complex situation”



“I never fought against the UFC about my pay"
“I got mine without thinking about other fighters, which is a disadvantage here, as the UFC operates in organizational lockstep, “


“I’ve never heard of a business in my life where the employees — if you want to call us employees or even subcontractors — where they’re going to say, ‘I shouldn’t be paid more, they’re paying me a perfect amount of money.’ That is so unbelievable to me.”
“Ive never heard of a business in my life where the owner - if want to call them bosses or even paymasters- where they’re going to say, ‘I should pay my employees more, theyre getting paid an imperfect amount of money.’ That is so unbelievable to me.”

 

[YSB]

He's not wrong.

 

[El Fernas]

the pay is much better then the days of 2K/2k

i'm not sure what the min is now? 12K/12K?

I thought it was 10k/10k, but looks like some DWCS fighters are still getting 8k/8k contracts, i dont think those guys deserve 100k a fight, but thats too low for a guy that often "auditions" in front of Dana White 2 times, like 2 guys on "lookin for a fight did recently, Dana made a big deal about their age only to give them a chance at DWCS this season like 2 weeks ago, both lost iirc, not sure if winner got signed.

DWCS provides the UFC with constant cheap talent.

PS: Show/Win pay is another scam MMA gets away with it.

 

[LostMyBlackBelt]

Stockholm syndrome...

Once Dana gave him Ben And Jerry's after a fight, he will never forget that.

 

[Bend NvR Break]

45k per year?!?! FFS even I make more than that and I'm goddamn poor.

move to mississippi, alabama, lousiana, west virginia or idaho. 45K will get you a comfortable living and the attention of all the pretty women in those areas

 

[Bend NvR Break]

Matt Brown is of course right, but a business does not necessarily have to maximize profit margins, a fair balance between revenue and fighter compensation could co-exist.

no such thing as altruistic capitalism

 

[Bend NvR Break]

NBA, MLB, NFL, FIFA, NHL etc are all established, so established that from Elementary to High School to College, those sports are already avenue for education and form of employment. No one everyone ever makes to those sports, while random fighters make it into the UFC. Once individuals make into the league, that’s a lifetime of efffort from when those players could run to getting drafted off course they’ll be getting adequately. It’s not easy getting into those team/league sports and when they do only a handful will ever get those big contracts. Brock Purdy was only making 800k as recently as 22’. That’s more than plumber but given the amount of time he’s spent playing compared to a fighter like Pereira, Pereira probably made that much in just 2 fights, compared 18 weeks of nonstop, games.

People also love to complain about medical and health insurance, NFL players only have insurance for a few years after they retire, MLB is the only sport that covers medical for a lifetime.

the NFL players decided it was more important for the NFL to stop testing for weed than it was for them to get medical coverage extended. this was a few years ago and I remember one of the players that represented the players union was pissed and said something like "not every nfl player smokes weed but every nfl player could use 20 year of health insurance after they finish playing."

 

[Bend NvR Break]

We still have regional talent in the premier organization and Dana seems to keep getting richer.

I've been saying it and i keep getting flamed for it but i believe the increase in shows caused the roster to expand rapidly but that caused an inverse relation with respect to he talent level. A lot of guys on the current ufc roster should be in regional shows and not in the ufc but the ufc needs to put on shows so they will keep taking a propsect and use there PR team to make the public believe that they are elite just because they are in the ufc.

 

[Mike]

move to mississippi, alabama, lousiana, west virginia or idaho. 45K will get you a comfortable living and the attention of all the pretty women in those areas

Now the question is what pays 45k a year out there lol. I make like 55 to 60 here but I'm sure my job either doesn't exist there or pays much less.

It's wild that within my lifetime 60k has dropped from middle class all the way down to poverty.

 

[Mike]

I've been saying it and i keep getting flamed for it but i believe the increase in shows caused the roster to expand rapidly but that caused an inverse relation with respect to he talent level. A lot of guys on the current ufc roster should be in regional shows and not in the ufc but the ufc needs to put on shows so they will keep taking a propsect and use there PR team to make the public believe that they are elite just because they are in the ufc.

I don't think anyone should be flaming you for saying that because it's absolutely true lol. Comes up all the time in discussions on here. Just being a UFC fighter doesn't really mean anything because the roster is bloated with regional level guys.

 

[Kono dio da!]

I'm not generally a fan of unions, but in this case a UFC fighters union is really needed, similar to other big sports leagues.

Why do you hate unions?

 

[Staph infection]

People in the early years of all sports have gotten fucked over. The UFC is nothing new. Football, baseball, basketball, soccer are sports where players got paid shit for a long time.

 

[Fight Professor]

Most of that is going to debt payments.

This. You have to look at the company margin, not the revenue.

 

[haj02]

I don't expect great thinking from a former heroin addict tbh.

 

[Mike]

I don't expect great thinking from a former heroin addict tbh.

Plenty of addicts and former addicts are very smart.

 

[skylolow]

This is nonsense.


Not all countries allow businesses to be equally as damaging. Some countries are far better than their counterparts.

You're philosophizing so you don't have to look at real world solutions that have been developed to solve this problem. As your post goes on, I'm not even sure you know what the problem is.

You're going deep into thought in your imagination and avoiding all knowledge of the actual issue. Do you actually know anything about what makes businesses damaging to consumers, employees and society? Do you know what different countries have done to address these problems?

You have such a simple take on the matter I can't tell if you don't know anything about it or are comforted by talking points.

I think you are missing the point of a business.

Businesses success is usually defined by revenue and profits. Blaming a business like the UFC because they take too much money and control from their employees/contractors is only one side of the story.

Fans, media, state, or federal will never change the problem of pay as whole. That is an issue the fighters themselves have to take up and no one else. The government/courts could impose some standards in contracts with the right court ruling or bill passes. But it won't ever say you must pay fighters "X" amount or percentage from your revenues.

You're acting like out the goodness of UFC's heart they should just say we'll pay out 40% of the revenue to the fighters even though we pay more than anyone else in the business currently and that is fantasy world thinking.

Brown is 100% right that the fighters are the one's that have to fix this. Like I said previously most major sports go through this phase and eventually the UFC will to. I'm not saying the UFC is right or wrong in this matter, they are just doing what any business would do in this same situation. If anyone is waiting for government or society to go fight for the fighters, good luck.