UFC vs Boxing Pay

I mean, it would any of the smaller fighters who made it near the world level without any question.

Guys who are on the prelims wouldn't even get fights in the UFC. There wouldn't be prelims under that model because the main eventers would be hoovering up most of the money.
 
I don't know where to begin with this stupid thread. I'm close to 50 so I'm older than most of you. This whole fighter pay income inequality is bs. This is why Venezuela is bankrupt. The people thought like you all and were jealous and voted in a socialist and now everyone is poor. Dustin makes about a million a year when he fights 2x a year. Average salary in nfl is about that. He is well payed. He could never play in the NFL no matter how much he practiced and trained. Mma affords him a opportunity to be a millionaire. Only in a capitalist country could he do that.


Jim carrey believes in socialism even though he is worth 100 million. Make that kind of money growing up in Cuba. He couldn't. He is a hypocrite like all of them. I make 40k a year. I have enough money now to semi retire. I invested in stocks and commodities. Warren buffet said it best. "If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.” Dont blame others for your poverty.

The point of discussion is the fact that a guy like Dustin, having all out wars that take years off, gets paid close to a million for 2 fights a year while a guy like Terence Crawford, who is bringing in around the same amount of viewers or maybe a bit more than Poirier is earning almost 10x as much. Thats not even including the fact that Poirier just got to this pay grade in his last 2 or 3 fights, he was getting paid peanuts before. Hurts the sport big time, not surprised to see guys like Poirier outright declining fights due to pay. Takes a big hit on potential talent pool also imho.
 
The point of discussion is the fact that a guy like Dustin, having all out wars that take years off, gets paid close to a million for 2 fights a year while a guy like Terence Crawford, who is bringing in around the same amount of viewers or maybe a bit more than Poirier is earning almost 10x as much. Thats not even including the fact that Poirier just got to this pay grade in his last 2 or 3 fights, he was getting paid peanuts before. Hurts the sport big time, not surprised to see guys like Poirier outright declining fights due to pay. Takes a big hit on potential talent pool also imho.
you're ignoring that crawford is bringing those views on the basis of being one of the best fighters p4p in the world. poirier does not have anywhere near the overall drawing power of crawford. crawford drew 2m on espn, poirier - hooker drew 1m on espn. which was only about 10% higher than cards headlined by blaydes-volkov and another by eye - calvillo........
 
Golf and tennis majors pay under 20% of revenue to the players. They do because they can. It’s still the most lucrative and prestigious tournaments so the players play. They know they get a small %, the tournaments know and the games go on.

paying more just to satisfy some standard of fair % just isn’t good business.

the Yankees in 2018 spent 29% of their revenue on payroll. The lowest in the league by far. They aren’t required to spend a fixed %. They pay what they need to to compete.

Again there are similarities with boxing but again boxers revenue won’t drop by 70% if they switch promoter.

The players across the MLB make over 50% of the revenue, though. I do get what you're saying in terms of it would be foolish to expect the UFC to pay more if they're not compelled to. They're not going to do anything out of the goodness of their heart. More than that, MMA fighters might be the least likely group of athletes to ever organize for a variety of reasons (if their attempts to organize weren't crushed legally, which is entirely likely given the current political and legal landscape).

I don't think there is much hope for MMA fighter pay to get much better for the foreseeable future because I don't expect there to ever be any pressure exerted on the company which has a monopoly on elite MMA. My gripe is that people justify this to themselves by suggesting the boxing model would somehow be worse for fighters. That's absurd. It could also be argued that it's not particularly good for the sport in terms of drawing talent (although, a lot of the top talent comes from amateur wrestling, and unless you're in an ex-Soviet-bloc country where many of them have different avenues, there isn't a ton else to do for amateur wrestlers after their careers end except get one of the very few lucrative coaching jobs).
 
Most major sports split their revenue 50/50 with the athletes, the UFC tops out at 18%. Numbers don't lie. Now for Biden to introduce the Ali act. Happy days!

No real chance of that happening (something like the Ali Act would only really work with the Supreme Court also okaying an anti-trust motion against the UFC and breaking it up, which has zero chance of happening). The major parts of the Ali Act only really function in boxing because the Supreme Court previously ruled against promotional monopolies in boxing in the 1950s (the IBC of New York). There will never be a similar ruling applied to MMA for the UFC (despite the fact the UFC easily meets the requirements that made the IBC of New York a monopoly on elite boxing), given the political, economic and legal climate is much different now than in the 1950s.
 
Did you guys even read my post? Forum is ridiculous at times. I literally addressed every single point you guys mentioned, especially in the context of whats being discussed and you guys chose to ignore it completely. Go read the post again, not going to respond to either posts directly

I have re-read your OP carefully and can see that you acknowledge these points (no inclusion of "low level" fighters, different pay structures).

However, "acknowledging" isn't the same as "addressing". If you had considered these aspects, your conclusions about the comparison between UFC and boxing could have been different. Basically, if you you pick and choose the data that support your argument you can prove any point you want.
 
wow no one knew this.

wow.

no one knew.
 
Thought I would make a thread about it to see what others think about the discrepancy and affect on MMA's talent pool. I think boxing is the only relevant argument actually. Low level boxers are equivalent to mma fighters fighting mostly outside of ufc, which is not the point. For a dedicated and highly talented fighter, he would be mid or top tier and thats where all the prospective earning opportunities would matter for some one passionate about a career.

Compare mid tier boxers to mid tier mma fighters. By mid tier, I mean they bring in viewers, maybe around 50K-600K viewers and upper mid tier would be on the lower end of ppv scale, bringing in less than 500K buys. Also ufc fighters have hardly any opportunities for sponsorship deals, while boxers earn quite a bit from sponsorship deals etc, not only their guaranteed purses. Lets compare:

Mid Tier:
UFC: Dustin Poirier - Last fight $300,000
Boxing: Terence Crawford - Last fight guaranteed purse $3,000,000

UFC: Max Holloway - Last fight $250,000
Boxing: Danny Garcia - Last fight guaranteed purse $2,000,000

Upper Mid Tier:
UFC: Jon Jones - Last fight $500,000
Boxing: Amir Khan - Last fight $8,000,000

Top Tier:
UFC: Conor Mcgregor - Last fight $3,000,000
Boxing: Tyson Fury - Last fight $28,000,000

Its not even worth comparing, the pay in the ufc is a joke. Keep in mind the numbers shown for upper tier and top tier fighters don't even take sponsorships into account, as well as the fact that boxers getting a much larger percentage of ppv buys afterwards as well. For some one pursuing a fighting career, mma is sadly a horrible choice money wise. Compared to boxing, where there are way more opportunities to make a considerably large amount of income.

I think facts like these is why mma doesn't get taken as seriously when it comes to sports, seems like a moneygrab business for promotion rather than sport to most. The fact that the ufc continually screws over fighters is just sad, and its getting worse now with seasoned veterans like Jussier Formiga getting cut in favor of no name amateur DWCS fighters who will accept $12K/$12K purses.
Jones is making around 5 million per fight and Conor 20-30 million dollars when they get their PPV share. That makes their pay quite similar to what boxers get
 
You can't judge Boxing pay by a handful of top guys, look down the cards, you'd be shocked.
 
The lower pay in MMA is a large part of why the UFC can put on (relatively) stacked cards and big fights on a semi regular basis. If they had to fork out millions in purses for every halfway decent fight the end result would probably not be good for fans.
 
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