Schaub, Jon Anik and Florian go at it regarding fighter pay on podcast

[fightdonttweet]

Apparently "I love the UFC" = "I love bitching about the UFC non stop"

I thought Brendan is doing well selling T shirts. Why so bitter and butthurt?

Tim Kennedy, Brendan Schaub...all these people bitching about the Reebok sponsorship always fail to mention that NOBODY is stopping them from getting extra sponsors. The UFC literally only requires them to wear Reebok like what, 6 days out of every year? For crying out loud, quit whining and go get as many sponsors as you want for the rest of the year. Ronda Rousey gets apparel sponsors, game sponsors, fast food sponsors, movie deals, said some shit about DNB on a video and next thing you know she's sold 40,000 DNB T-shirts....

If a butterfaced 135 lbs chick with extreme BO can do it, why can't Brendan Schaub? Why can't Tim Kennedy? These whiners need to stop blaming the UFC and Reebok for your own incompetence and do something for themselves. You don't see Ronda Rousey sitting on her ass bitching about the state of WMMA and how it's not even in the UFC in 2011. Don't bitch about the environment, CHANGE the environment. Tim Kenney is supposed to be some special forces badass yet in reality he's mentally weaker than a chick with daddy issues. Weak.

You're trying too hard. Makes it obvious.

 

[jamiehunter]

I can't believe I'm saying this AGAIN. But I'm with Schaub on this one.

Private company? WTF is that sh*t?

How do they pay taxes if no one knows what they make?

The same way a person pays taxes. My paycheck isn't public record but I still pay my taxes. Private company means their financials aren't available for the public to see. It doesn't mean the IRS doesn't know what they make. It's still reported to the IRS.

 

[method115]

Like most things in life, the truth is in the middle.

Dana White imports snow to his Las Vegas home and has a fleet of Ferraris. He owns 9% of the UFC. Read that last sentence again.

There has been plenty of money pulled out of Zuffa. From their crediting rating, its been reported they pull out the maximum amount of cash in the form of disbursements allowed by the terms of their loans.

Suffice to say Zuffa has pulled tens of tens of millions out in cash to pay the partnership. If they wanted to drop a few million a year back into fighter pay, they easily could.

The market hasn't forced them to, and there is no fighters association, so they have not. Thats business and I do not dispute their right.

Let's call it for what it is though. You can't say its the cost of expansion and doing business if the partners are pulling out millions and millions to pay themselves.

Do you have any proof that they haven't put some of that money back into fighter pay? Cause it's a known fact that fighter pay has increased over the years this can't be disputed. At one point in time only the champs got PPV points now fighters like Meledenez are able to get them as well. I think the min now is 10/10 as well. So fighter pay is increasing that can't even be argued at this point. Whether it's fast enough or not is another debate.

 

[jamiehunter]

Ronda Rousey - the chick that if you called her fat she'll be crying for 2 weeks before making a "I'm not fat I'm festively plum F the haters" T-shirt to make herself feel better.

That t-shirt would pocket Ronda over $1 million in a week or two. She'd be a fool not to sell it.

 

[Riker]

i think undisclosed locker room bonuses are required, at least by some Brazilians cause if criminals found out how much they were making we might have multiple Belfort sister cases going around.

LOL like there aren't hundreds of soccer players earning millions in Brazil. They will target Erick Fucking Silva and his bonuses.

Oh, and there was no money request on Belfort's sister. It was likely a homicide not a kidnap.

 

[jeremyemilio]

I can't believe I'm saying this AGAIN. But I'm with Schaub on this one.

Private company? WTF is that sh*t?

How do they pay taxes if no one knows what they make?

That's hilarious.

(Oh, Slovenia...)

 

[awymore]

It is still not a sport. Laughable that you get paid due to your appeal to the masses rather than your production and value as a martial artist. It is an entertainment company that pays the fighter for how much they can entertain people, not how good you are. Nothing wrong with entertainment, though. Still not a sport.

I have to disagree with this. Any sport that wants to survive and make money is going to have to be entertaining. They just approach it in different ways. The UFC encourages fighters to fight through stand ups, bonuses, whatever. If baseball feels it needs more offense, they will lower the mound, change the balls, turn a blind eye to PEDs, etc. If the NFL wants more offense, they will do things to protect the quarterbacks and wide receivers. Every "sport" changes to appease fans.

 

[HAWTRIDDUM]

Anik towing the line for his employers like usual

18x bjj champ schaub telling it like how he really feels

 

[MilesAbove]

It is still not a sport. Laughable that you get paid due to your appeal to the masses rather than your production and value as a martial artist. It is an entertainment company that pays the fighter for how much they can entertain people, not how good you are. Nothing wrong with entertainment, though. Still not a sport.

On the money... and sad because it is the fan's fault for not demanding the sporting aspect. Don't get me wrong, we all love a talker. But the talker who cannot back it up should get a nice bottom-billing on a PPV, not a sudden title shot. And wreckless/bold fighters should be treated the same.

 

[VroomyJeeps]

The pay is laughable let's be honest

The Reebok payout is dumb as well, very very few fighters will ever make it to 15 fights or even 10. So 80% of fighters (yes i pulled that stat out of my ass) will never get more than a couple thousand in sponsor money.

Meanwhile dana is carrying trash bags full of cash out the back door of casinos and driving around in one of his 15 Lamborghinis while joe undecard is fighting for less than he would make working for McDonalds

 

[Moezao]

Just a couple points.

Most fighters fight 2x per year because they CHOOSE to fight only 2x per year. The UFC standard contract (confirmed by Alvarez's contract and interviews from agents/managers that have had fighters go to the UFC) is that the UFC is required to offer 3 matches per year. It is up to each fighter to take or not take those matches. The UFC is only required to OFFER the fights, they don't have to actually MAKE 3 fights per year.

If the UFC offers 3 fights and the fighter turns them all down, then tough luck. They held up their end of the bargain.

Many fighters choose to NOT take more than 2 a year because they are waiting for a better fight. Some are forced to not take 2 per year due to injury of course, but that's not the majority. Some choose to take more.

Cerrone fought 5x in 2011, 2x in 2012, 4x in 2013, 4x in 2014, and has already fought 3x in 2015. In other words, the opportunity to fight more is often there.

Additionally, fighting 2x per year means you're dedicating 20 weeks a year between camps and the actual fight. There's nothing stopping those fighters from taking additional employment such as teaching MA, general side jobs, etc.

Now before people start saying that the UFC is the NFL/MLB/NHL of MMA and should be providing similar compensation, the UFC as an organization is the major leagues, but the entire roster is NOT the major leagues.

The UFC essentially has two tiers of fighters, main card (pros) and prelim fighters (semi-pro). Think of main card fighters as the NFL/NHL/MLB in that they're televised to a wide audience and the athletes, have some level of name recognition and are recognized as the "best".

The rest of the fighters are more like the D-league in the NBA ($30k/year), AAA hockey ($25k-$30K/year) or the CFL ($50K/year minimum). And the UFC is several orders of magnitude less in revenue, viewership than any of the other major sports.

And you are right, the UFC does not own the fighters. Thompson walked as did Koscheck. The reason why more fighters still choose to come to the UFC is that unless you're an already established name then you're simply going to get paid more fighting for the UFC than organizations like ONE FC, Bellator or WSOF.

Now all that doesn't mean that the Reebok deal doesn't suck for the fighters. It does suck for the fighters. However it is within the rights of the UFC to impose uniforms during UFC events. While it's not "fair" to the fighters within the context of them having an outside income stream being taken away, it's not unfair in the sense that the platform provided by the UFC does belong to the UFC.

The main thing now is what's done is done.

The fighters aren't going to get that advertising space back no matter how much they complain. The rights were already signed away in the Reebok deal. The fighters need to worry about what to do next, which is either to negotiate for higher base pay individually or collectively, or to see if they can seek better compensation with another organization, or to seek income streams from other sources outside of their fighting (other jobs, other sponsorships, independent businesses, etc).

Fighters don't fight an average of twice a year because they want to. There are 45 events. Each with maybe 12 fights? 45 x 12 x 2 = 1080. Considering 550 fighters under contract it's less than 2 fights per year in average. That's the limit.

 

[Timurd123]

That ol
"Secret bonus" excuse

 

[rjmbrd]

Do you have any proof that they haven't put some of that money back into fighter pay?

Well, yes. By definition, disbursements are payouts to the partnership. Whatever they've spent on increasing in fighter pay certainly didn't get paid out to them personally, taxed personally, then re-entered back to the company. That would be asinine.

Cause it's a known fact that fighter pay has increased over the years this can't be disputed. At one point in time only the champs got PPV points now fighters like Meledenez are able to get them as well. I think the min now is 10/10 as well. So fighter pay is increasing that can't even be argued at this point. Whether it's fast enough or not is another debate.

So independently of whatever Zuffa has done with increasing fighter pay over years, the absolute fact is they've pulled out tens of millions to pay themselves personally. Absorb that last sentence.

Dana White has a fleet of super-cars and imports snow to Las Vegas for his lawn at Christmas. He is a 9% owner of the UFC.

It's a private business and it is their right, I don't dispute it at all. My point is that they've chosen to reward themselves handsomely. That is the context of all this.

 

[CRuck1980]

It is still not a sport. Laughable that you get paid due to your appeal to the masses rather than your production and value as a martial artist. It is an entertainment company that pays the fighter for how much they can entertain people, not how good you are. Nothing wrong with entertainment, though. Still not a sport.

What does the pay have to do with it being a sport