Why are ufc athletes so poorly treated compared to all other professional athletes??? Fighter pay aw

[abject]

Why are ufc athletes treated so badly????

14-16% of all revenue to the fighters that is embarrassing. Terrible look for mma. Fighter pay is the biggest problem in the sport. Why is Dana not grilled about this constantly???

NFL, NBA, MLB and European Soccer league athletes are Kings and royalty and ufc fighters are peasants.

Capitalism 101. They need to work harder or smarter.

 

[moreorless87]

Capitalism 101. They need to work harder or smarter.

Group together and improve their barginning position, or is that the "wrong kind of capitalism"?

 

[Macsworth]

Fighters need to learn how to trash talk properly

 

[xn7]

You are comparing apples to bald eagles.

1. 2 NFL teams alone are worth more than the entire UFC.
2. All those leagues you mentioned have unions.
3. Baseball players play 162 games. NFL players play 17+ games. UFC fighter fights likes 2 times a year.

apparently you don't know what percentage means.

 

[Eric Silva 2.0]

Why are ufc athletes treated so badly????

14-16% of all revenue to the fighters that is embarrassing. Terrible look for mma. Fighter pay is the biggest problem in the sport. Why is Dana not grilled about this constantly???

NFL, NBA, MLB and European Soccer league athletes are Kings and royalty and ufc fighters are peasants.

I don't know much about European Soccer but NFL, NBA and MLB (add NHL) all have unions. The fighters get crushed in negotiations. At least a few of the fighters like DC become friends with Dana and get treated well.

 

[azerty]

the main difference is that MMA has always been a business, it was born a business, unlike football (soccer) , basket ball, tennis, who all have a long history, they all have regional, national, international organisations, profit never were the goal ,even now when it come to soccer most clubs aren't profitable whereas nobody start an MMA promotion to not make money
so even with an union , more promotions, you can't expect mma to ever be like those other sports, it will always be an sport/business hybrid

 

[D 1 Wrestler]

Because in other leagues top players weren't scared and stood up for themselves and went on strike, and still do (baseball is currently under a lockout for example), for their rights and union. When UFC fighters do they say they will see better contracts

 

[Tokoloko]

Not random products, but they're usually allowed footwear sponsorships etc. Top soccer players get paid millions by boot manufacturers to wear their boots on the field.

How can the UFC not be the problem. I'm far from the most militant person about this but fighter pay has barely increased since the ESPN deal which vastly increased revenue and the performance bonuses have been $50k for about 10 years now, during which time the companies finances have increased massively.

I will never blame UFC "negotatiators" for doing good job... I will rather blame managers of fighters and fighters for being stupid and signing bad contracts. Like 12k/12k isnt bad for first 3 fights, and then u should negotiate contract with raising salary clause.... Would u personally sign contract for +- 3-6 years with fixed salary? Because lot of fighters basically do this when they sign 6 fight contract with fixed salary..

 

[MikeyB]

Do you walk into TMobile and yell about how much better Verizon treats its workers?

 

[Jozo Sha]

They're just that, fighters.

They're not professional athletes, just like how a golfer isnt an athlete.

They know what they signed up for.

Being paid to participate in a sport makes you a 'professional', as opposed to an 'amateur'. Period.
And golfers aren't athletes? What planet do you live on, man?

 

[kahiljabroni]

In short....they need a union.

 

[chinarice]

UFC! UFC! UFC!

Dana! Dana! Dana!

I wish they'd just fire everyone so it could just be the Dana White show.

Fuck the fighters! I support the UFC and hope they never pay any fighter more. I root for the UFC's success, not the fighters! UFC! UFC! UFC!

 

[TheNinja]

apparently you don't know what percentage means.

Apparently you don’t know what scaling means. It’s much easier to share 50% of $20 billion than it is to share 50% of $900 million. You have overhead costs and then after that is covered you can start to pay employees better.

 

[avenue94]

1. 2 NFL teams alone are worth more than the entire UFC.

Hence people use wage share...which scales.

You can probably pay the fighters much more but you have to cut the roster down to 5 people per division? It's not a good viable model for fighting.

You clearly could keep most of the roster and still have the UFC be profitable even as you substantially increase pay, especially if you target the lower paid/entry level fighters.

Because the UFC is Event/PPV based, not a league season on fucking network TV.

Most of their revenue is guaranteed at this point.

MMA is young sport

Age of sport is very loosely correlated to athlete pay.

NFL -1950 - Free beer after game and less then 6,000 USD per season.....Today average is

You are aware of a thing called inflation correct? This is more than 60,000 grand a year, aka more than a lot of UFC fighters net as contractors.

MLB (top salaries) - 1915(Fred Clarke)-15,000 USD. 1934(Babe Ruth) - 35,000 USD. 1950(Joe DiMaggio) - 100,000 USD......Today average is 4.17 mil USD.

In order, adjusted for inflation: Clarke is 412,000; Ruth is 726,000; DiMaggio is 1.15 million. These are also all wages before the end of the reserve clause.

its so funny to me that people constantly bash UFC. Go and bash Bellator which is not shamed to pay some people 250 USD as fight purse.

People bash the UFC because they can afford to pay more. Bellator cannot. Not to mention as the monopsony of the entire sport, the UFC sets, or at least heavily influences overall wages.

The real recent issue is why do fighters all wear Crypto as a sponsor to the cage but don't get paid a cent for doing so?

To be blunt, his real issue is also he apparently has never heard of inflation.

 

[Ozze]

Was this the first "fighter pay is only 16%" thread of 2022?

Congrats TS!

 

[avenue94]

Its always gonna be silly to compare fight sports to regular sports. They arent the same and never will be.

So why not just compare mma to boxing, the closest analogue?

The UFC also has a load of debt to service which means if they increase the share the business won't be able to service the debt as well (or potentially at all). The UFC credit rating is dogshit because of the massive debt.

The UFC does not have a ton of debt to serve. WME does. The UFC's credit rating is also pretty decent.

 

[Chagaev]

Because people will stop to watch two bums going at it into the street, two bums throwing hoops not so much.

The show is bigger than the fighters, Dana could sell you Punk, Sage or Kimbo and still make bank.

 

[PPVpoints]

You are comparing apples to bald eagles.

1. 2 NFL teams alone are worth more than the entire UFC.
2. All those leagues you mentioned have unions.
3. Baseball players play 162 games. NFL players play 17+ games. UFC fighter fights likes 2 times a year.

And yet with all that bullshit you typed up, you still ignoring the elephant in the room which is the revenue split. The UFC consistently fuck over its contractors with bush league revenue split. No excuse for it other than greed.

 

[avenue94]

The show is bigger than the fighters, Dana could sell you Punk, Sage or Kimbo and still make bank.

Uhhh. CM Punk sold himself, and the UFC couldn't sell Sage or Kimbo. Do you even UFC?

 

[wlu.29]

Ping pong players and dart players make more money than UFC fighters