The problem with “low fighter pay” is that most fighters add no value to the UFC.

The UFC should drastically increase the performance bonus pool. They currently pay out $200,000 per fight card in public performance bonuses. They should up it to $1,000,000.

There are 22.1 fighters on average on a UFC card. The UFC pays them $3.26 million per event, including the $200,000 in public performance bonuses. This means public performance bonuses only account for 6% of fighter pay.

The UFC currently shares 18-20% of revenue with its fighters. Paying out an additional $800,000 per event would only increase the revenue share to 22-25%.

If much more significant money was on the line, fighters would be incentivized to take more risks in the cage, which leads to more exciting performances.

It would also be great for the UFC from a PR standpoint to say they are paying out $1,000,000 in bonuses every week, while in reality it increases the fighters' share of revenue by a relatively small percentage.

Grand Performance of the Night: $500,000
Co-Performance of the Night: $100,000
Co-Performance of the Night: $100,000
Performance Bonus: $50,000
Performance Bonus: $50,000
Fight of the Night: $100,000
Fight of the Night: $100,000
 
If you've watched a prelim and think that prelim fighters ad nothing to the sport then you are entirely full of shit

As a whole prelim fighters are important. The main reason being that they expand the size of a event from having 5-6 fights (main card) to as high as 15 fights. But no individual prelim fighter has any real value. They are interchangeable unless they break through. The reality remains that most will never break through.

The ranking system is also problematic. If you're ranked #6 or below, you might as well be unranked. A champ defends 2 maybe 3 times a year. Unless they're already a marketable fighter, the #7 contender is never getting one of those 2 to 3 title shots.
 
The UFC should drastically increase the performance bonus pool. They currently pay out $200,000 per fight card in public performance bonuses. They should up it to $1,000,000.

There are 22.1 fighters on average on a UFC card. The UFC pays them $3.26 million per event, including the $200,000 in public performance bonuses. This means public performance bonuses only account for 6% of fighter pay.

The UFC currently shares 18-20% of revenue with its fighters. Paying out an additional $800,000 per event would only increase the revenue share to 22-25%.

If much more significant money was on the line, fighters would be incentivized to take more risks in the cage, which leads to more exciting performances.

It would also be great for the UFC from a PR standpoint to say they are paying out $1,000,000 in bonuses every week, while in reality it increases the fighters' share of revenue by a relatively small percentage.

Grand Performance of the Night: $500,000
Co-Performance of the Night: $100,000
Co-Performance of the Night: $100,000
Performance Bonus: $50,000
Performance Bonus: $50,000
Fight of the Night: $100,000
Fight of the Night: $100,000
It would be a decent PR move, but the better fix for fighter pay would just be tacking on that money as guaranteed show money or something. Bonuses have the similar problem to the show/win structure, if you're an athlete, you want as much pay guaranteed as possible to avoid dealing with any fuckery. For example, with bonuses, it's not like there is some objective way to award those bonuses, and the UFC can disqualify fighters from bonuses for pretty arbitrary reasons.

Like, it might look cool, but you have larger fighter pay problems when their bonus is the amount of money they make in a year normally.
 
This will attract anger so I want to start by saying I do wish fighters were paid more money.

But let’s be real, there are four ways you get noticed in this sport:

1.) Be elite (champs and title contenders)

2.) Put on exciting fights (Jiri, Francis, etc.)

3.) Work the mic and build up a following (Masvidal, Khamzat, Till, etc.

4.) Be crazy (Mike Perry, Diego)

Fighters can fall in multiple camps here. But, if you don’t fall into any of these, then no one is going to care about you.

So take a good fighter like Michael Chiesa. He’s boring as shit, he provided one meme years ago (Don’t you dare), and he’s good but not champ good. If the UFC cut him, the reaction would be a few “don’t you dare” memes and then it would be forgotten one day later. He provides no value to the company. They would not lose $1 with him gone.

Look at who we talk about here all day. Khamzat, Diego, Jiri, Francis, Black Beast, Mike Perry, Jones, etc.) These guys have value and worth. Some boring ass mofo like Neil Magny or Askar Askarov doesn’t. Can you really blame the UFC for not shelling out the big bucks for guys who add nothing to their bottom line?

There is a cost associated with each promotion/show the UFC produces. They have to break that down to specific costs, including each slot on a fight card. Roughly speaking, If they are shooting for a specific profit margin, the fighter's value to the UFC equals the gross margin of the spot they are taking on the fight card. The UFC can't deliver the content to their customer, ESPN, without the body to fill that spot. So each fighter has value, and the UFC'S goal is to fill each spot on a fight card with the most profitable fighter without causing a significant negative effect to viewership.
 
There is a cost associated with each promotion/show the UFC produces. They have to break that down to specific costs, including each slot on a fight card. Roughly speaking, If they are shooting for a specific profit margin, the fighter's value to the UFC equals the gross margin of the spot they are taking on the fight card. The UFC can't deliver the content to their customer, ESPN, without the body to fill that spot. So each fighter has value, and the UFC'S goal is to fill each spot on a fight card with the most profitable fighter without causing a significant negative effect to viewership.
Sort of, but not really. Prelims are really cheap to put on.
-No really marketing costs
-UFC production guys are employees, maybe they are hourly, but I doubt they are paid by the hour.
-Production costs are mostly fixed. Flying the cage to Australia costs the same, no matter how many fighters step in it, that kind of thing. The main cost of prelims would likely be insurance and commission costs. And obviously their purses.
-ESPN pays a flat fee per prelim (it's about 8 million if i recall), how well or poorly has no bearing on that card's fee.
-Prelim fighters are quite profitable but they are pretty interchangeable under the ESPN deal.
 
No, you’re a shill and an idiot.


If the UFC wants to collect on that ESPN money they need to put out X cards per year. The UFC makes a ton of money off the gate of every event (pre-Covid). You think they can fill all those cards up with just big name fighters? How long do you think that will last?

Fucking shills.


There's also the fact that elite-level boxers who aren't PPV draws (i.e. Lomachenko and Terence Crawford) get paid millions to headline ESPN/ESPN+ cards while a lot of UFC fighters headlining on those platforms don't even make a guaranteed six figure purse.
 
How would you determine the market value of low tier fighters? Because if you divided the prelim money the UFC gets and divided it by the number of fighters there (10 or whatever), each fighter is worth a couple hundred thousand bucks at least.

And I'm coming from the view that the roster is bloated. It's bloated because it makes the UFC money.

The only thing I can think of is non-restrictive, short term (1 year max), 1-2 fight contracts being the norm. Anything else would be illegal. In other words, like the Ali Act. Fighters would be free agents literally dozens of times throughout their career thus establishing their market value repeatedly.

Problem is that MMA is not, at heart, truly a sport. Demetrious Johnson was the #1 P4P fighter and is arguably one of the GOATs. I don't think he'll be the highest paid fighter in a truly free market system. In a real sport, prime DJ would be the most sought after free agent year after year after year.
 
The only thing I can think of is non-restrictive, short term (1 year max), 1-2 fight contracts being the norm. Anything else would be illegal. In other words, like the Ali Act. Fighters would be free agents literally dozens of times throughout their career thus establishing their market value repeatedly.

Problem is that MMA is not, at heart, truly a sport. Demetrious Johnson was the #1 P4P fighter and is arguably one of the GOATs. I don't think he'll be the highest paid fighter in a truly free market system. In a real sport, prime DJ would be the most sought after free agent year after year after year.
Yeah less restrictive contracts for the entire industry would be better. And yeah, pay will never completely match merit but it could be a lot closer. DJ had most of the tools for being s good middle class draw, it was mostly UFC fans being anti small guy for whatever reason and the UFC bungling DJ and the division as a whole. Like...DJ was sponsored by Microsoft lol
 
Sort of, but not really. Prelims are really cheap to put on.
-No really marketing costs
-UFC production guys are employees, maybe they are hourly, but I doubt they are paid by the hour.
-Production costs are mostly fixed. Flying the cage to Australia costs the same, no matter how many fighters step in it, that kind of thing. The main cost of prelims would likely be insurance and commission costs. And obviously their purses.
-ESPN pays a flat fee per prelim (it's about 8 million if i recall), how well or poorly has no bearing on that card's fee.
-Prelim fighters are quite profitable but they are pretty interchangeable under the ESPN deal.
people get confused with how labor markets work. fighters don't inherently share in the revenue. how much the prelims make is irrelevant if you have interchangeable workers willing to perform at a specified rate. how many people watching the prelims is usually not tied to many of the individual fighters on the prelims. some established fighters, yes, and some buzz fighters, yes. and those are the ones with leverage.

it's like pointing to how much money american idol makes and suggesting the singers should be getting 50%.

that said, there's franchise value to the ufc in getting more views on the prelims.
 
people get confused with how labor markets work. fighters don't inherently share in the revenue. how much the prelims make is irrelevant if you have interchangeable workers willing to perform at a specified rate. how many people watching the prelims is usually not tied to many of the individual fighters on the prelims. some established fighters, yes, and some buzz fighters, yes. and those are the ones with leverage.

it's like pointing to how much money american idol makes and suggesting the singers should be getting 50%.

that said, there's franchise value to the ufc in getting more views on the prelims.
Yeah, I'm not arguing for that. No fighter or employer is ever going to be making 100 percent of the revenue they generate. But there's a big difference between being paid 5 percent of marginal revenue and 50 percent of it.
 
UFC should be the model that all sports follow

Reward those who bring in the money
 
Everyone should get an extra 10k finishing bonus on top of whatever regular bonuses they have now
 
I'd pay to watch Chiesa, and any other top-15 welterweight. Well, maybe not Magny, though he's usually fighting someone I do want to see, and is a good test to see how they cope with his style.

Most of the UFC roster is worthless to me though.
 
All these fighters who "add no value" actually allow the UFC to fill up cards and hold events. If the UFC's roster was composed of only those fighters TS thinks add value, then there would be far less cards and the UFC would make far less money.

So yes, they do add value and contribute to the UFC's bottom line.
 
TS is either Hunter Campbell or is just too young to understand how economics work.
 
cut half the roster, have fewer cards, pay the fighters more.

The UFC should drastically increase the performance bonus pool. They currently pay out $200,000 per fight card in public performance bonuses. They should up it to $1,000,000.

There are 22.1 fighters on average on a UFC card. The UFC pays them $3.26 million per event, including the $200,000 in public performance bonuses. This means public performance bonuses only account for 6% of fighter pay.

The UFC currently shares 18-20% of revenue with its fighters. Paying out an additional $800,000 per event would only increase the revenue share to 22-25%.

If much more significant money was on the line, fighters would be incentivized to take more risks in the cage, which leads to more exciting performances.

It would also be great for the UFC from a PR standpoint to say they are paying out $1,000,000 in bonuses every week, while in reality it increases the fighters' share of revenue by a relatively small percentage.

Grand Performance of the Night: $500,000
Co-Performance of the Night: $100,000
Co-Performance of the Night: $100,000
Performance Bonus: $50,000
Performance Bonus: $50,000
Fight of the Night: $100,000
Fight of the Night: $100,000
you realize guys are fighting for like 20/20 40/40. a 50k bonus is more than most fighters going rate....... no way they give more.
 
Exactly. So cut the bums with no notable qualities or entertainment value at all who make up the early prelims.
Oh wait, that's 80% of the roster at this point.
"uFc iS tHe A LeAgUes"
 
Exactly. So cut the bums with no notable qualities or entertainment value at all who make up the early prelims.
Oh wait, that's 80% of the roster at this point.
"uFc iS tHe A LeAgUes"
Blame the ESPN, UFC has to put on about 50 cards a year, which is ludicrous given the injury rate I this sport.
 
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