UFC financials finally revealed

Honestly, I feel 20% is not that bad (although wouldn't call it great either, it is much more than I anticipated). There are huge production costs and other overheads involved with running such a business, i can say that as i am into the audit business, and hence have seen a lot of other financials of companies in the similar industries. At the end of the day, we have to realise that the company also has to maintain a healthy profit margin, as does every company which wants to stay in business and grow.
Further, this is pre McGregor, so it's not like a large portion of this % is going to a single fighter.

The people who disagree are comparing the UFC's 20% to the 50% plus that the players from the US major 4 sports are paid. All those sports have huge production costs and other overhead involved in running those businesses.
 
Most fans who complain about fighter salaries are not doing so out of genuine concern for the fighter, but because they are un/underemployed and it soothes their ego to tie fighter pay into their personal lives with some grand, sweeping narrative about "haves and have nots", class warfare, the wicked greed of "fat cats who provide no value compared to da workin' man", etc...

As opposed to people who genuinely care about fighters’ livelihoods so much that they run their mouth on Internet forums in the hope of preserving fighters’ god given right to get exploited for the sake of bloated millionaires. How evil of us! I suppose you’re bitter because we don’t pat you on the back and rock you to sleep too, poor baby.
 
And the dictatorship that murders the fewest citizens per capita isn't so bad.

You're a fucking retard with that logic.

The UFC should be paying 50% of revenues to the fighters. The ballpark 20% figure is atrocious.

UFC can pay whatever the free market bears. This isn't North Korea kid.

UFC is the most stable and best paying MMA org in the world and has been so far over a decade. They continue to raise wages over the years too, even when their closest competitors are paying way less.

Why don't you start another MMA org and pay your fighters 50% of revenue?
 
As opposed to people who genuinely care about fighters’ livelihoods and want to preserve their god given right to get exploited for the sake of bloated millionaires such as you. I suppose you’re bitter because we don’t pat you on the back and rock you to sleep too, poor baby.

A hit dog will holler.
 
100%.... This is a growing sport & marketing/expansion cost, not to mention customer acquisition to transition a fan into a new sport I can only imagine.... You're talking about an entire organization that was purchased for $1.8 Million in the 21st century.

The valuation of the company means very little as it sold at a valuation of close to 50x forward earnings... This was not cheap & the Fertittas needed to invest 20x their investment ($40M) in-order to simply keep the sport alive and get it to the mainstream.

From there, they needed to continue to re-invest without the platforms the other major sports organizations has. The cost to break through their barriers is exactly that, a cost.

You could not have possibly put 50% of revenue into the fighters pocket or the company would go bust... Dana & the Fertittas made millions a year, sure, but if we're going to look at it practically, they created enormous compensation & an entire industry that never existed prior to them. Additionally, they were not taking anywhere CLOSE to 30% of revenue for compensation (the difference between fighter pay of UFC and the big 4) & anyone who doesn't understand this isn't in a position to speak about this from knowledge.

Fighter compensation was far higher than executive compensation & the UFC/Zuffa had as many staff members working for the company as they did fighters. They had an entire floor of lawyers in their old office specifically designated to put out fires & create them where needed to move things forward.

The exponential growth in fighter pay is obvious for those looking. Everyone wants to make more & the bottom end of fighters has gone up far above inflation & the top tier the same. Compensation will continue to grow as exposure increases at this level & the fighters that do extremely well will be able to utilize their brand/image in many other avenues.

If you look at the businesses alone created by fighters from from their own gyms, spices, whisky & podcast (of which Zuffa/WME/UFC receives nothing of) the opportunities they have created is truly endless.

These lawsuits simply help keep the law industry alive, more often than not simply stealing value from both sides through the mask of a degree.. I'm not saying all lawyers are bad, or even most. There's some incredible lawyers who do amazing thing.. For the most part though, it is one of, if not the largest "value stealing" industries to ever exist... I guess that's why they make for great politicians :p


Are they saying that 20% of revenue or 20% of the profits, after operating costs, go to fighters?

I always thought that in the NFL, nba,etc that players received around 50% of the profit.
 
UFC can pay whatever the free market bears. This isn't North Korea kid.

UFC is the most stable and best paying MMA org in the world and has been so far over a decade. They continue to raise wages over the years too, even when their closest competitors are paying way less.

Why don't you start another MMA org and pay your fighters 50% of revenue?
You're dumb as fuck. This isn't 1920's America. Capitalism is dying and you need to accept it.

Go get polio.
 
UFC can pay whatever the free market bears. This isn't North Korea kid.

UFC is the most stable and best paying MMA org in the world and has been so far over a decade. They continue to raise wages over the years too, even when their closest competitors are paying way less.

Why don't you start another MMA org and pay your fighters 50% of revenue?

I wouldn't bother talking to that guy.

He's a self-proclaimed "genius intellectual" who has never ran a business but thinks he knows everything about everything because he has an advanced degree and is a super-duper smart boy.

A budding philosopher king!
 
Are they saying that 20% of revenue or 20% of the profits, after operating costs, go to fighters?

I always thought that in the NFL, nba,etc that players received around 50% of the profit.
It's always gross revenue. It's bad book keeping to talk about labour percentage after profit.
 
You're dumb as fuck. This isn't 1920's America. Capitalism is dying and you need to accept it.

Go get polio.

He tries to start his argument off by evoking the ‘free market’ despite the fact that court documents show evidence of monopoly and unfair business practices, I.e, a lack of competition.

The saddest thing is these guys defending the current pay ratio run shitty small businesses and think a corporation like the UFC has the same barely surviving margins they do, despite evidence of millions of dollars in pure profit that get pocketed by shareholders and executives who don’t oversee or run the UFC, which is left up to slightly better paid managers that have to actually deal with the stress and hard calls.

Same myth of hard working capitalists, despite the fact that the real capitalists hire other people to do their work for them.
 
Last edited:
I wonder how many of you whining about fighter pay actually buy ppvs...just curious, because I know a lot of people on here openly brag about streaming everything. You know why their total payout to fighters is only 20%? Because out of the thousands of fighters that have cycled through the UFC over the years, we, the fans, only remember a small percentage of them.

Why is UFC still doing PPV in the first place? Isn't a little ridiculous to expect people to pay $80 to watch three hours of entertainment/sport? Especially in countries poorer than America? I can see three live hockey games for that price or see 4 movies or get get cable for three months.
 
Strong arguement kid.
The UFC is an illegal monopoly. They actively sabotage and buy out competition. And the UFC's contracts are blatantly illegal under the Ali act.

The UFC have just managed to drag out every legal case and buy out litigants when needed, so these issues haven't made it to court yet.

It's only a matter of time before the Ali act is officially applied to MMA, which will cap contract lengths at 1 year. Then you can say goodbye to champions clauses, and more free agents will mean more competition.
 
So the answer is noone pays better than the UFC? Got it.
Yes. And? Do you really want to tergiversate instead of reminding that UFC / MMA needs an UNION, to pay the fighters better? Intellectual dishonest.
 
He thinks that being the best of the worst is a good thing.

He has teenage level logical thinking. We can't expect to much of he kid.
No man, he is definitely not a kid. Some people here have an agenda, I would not doubt that these organizations pay people to talk shit on big MMA communities like Sherdog, for instance. This is clear for me.

The worst thing is that many people buy it. That's the real motivation of this hidden payroll, catch some unwaries. And it works.
 
Back
Top