The Greatest MMA News Column 01.24.12: UFC Fighter Pay
Posted by Dan Plunkett on 01.24.2012
The latest news and thoughts on Muhammed Lawal's positive steroid test and Zuffa drug testing all new fighters upon signing, Jorge Rivera's retirement and more! Plus a look at how much the UFC makes and whether fighters are paid fairly!
UFC Fighter Pay
Nearly two weeks ago, ESPN.com published an article by John Barr and Josh Gross that delved into the touchy subject of UFC fighter pay. It is a subject that the UFC brass, especially company president Dana White, has never been keen on publicly addressing in great detail, but on internet message board the subject is often brought up.
Nearly every time a commission releases UFC payouts, it's soon followed by a message board post wondering why a fighter was only making so much money, compared to a lesser skilled fighter making just as much if not more. Gradually, it's become quite well known that those disclosed payouts don't accurately express what those fighters are making. In fact, the total fighter payouts can be drastically different from the disclosed payouts – for pay-per-view shows they are often times multiple times larger.
For example, Brock Lesnar's official purse is a flat rate of $400,000. However, all told, from the UFC alone he's made well into the millions of dollars for each of his fights, especially those that exceeded a million buys on pay-per-view. Lesnar's opponent in December, Alistair Overeem, received a disclosed total payout of $385,714.28, about a third of which came from his win bonus. From court documents filed in Nevada from his former manager Golden Glory, Dave Meltzer estimates that Overeem, assuming the show did 800,000 buys, made about $2.2 million for the fight. That doesn't include any discretionary bonuses the UFC handed out. As of 2009, Georges St-Pierre was making $200,000 to show and another $200,000 to win. In recent interviews, St-Pierre has stated that he makes in the neighborhood of $4-5 million per fight, a considerable amount of which is likely from sponsors, but most would come from the UFC.
With those numbers in mind, some of the figures estimated in the ESPN piece simply cannot be accurate. A May 2010 "Standard and Poor's" estimate cited in the ESPN article reported that about 75% of the UFC's revenue came from pay-per-view events. Assuming that information is somewhat accurate, using pay-per-view buy estimates, the UFC's revenues from May 2009 through May 2010 (perhaps their best period business-wise ever) would be north of $300 million and perhaps as high as $375 million (that is, if the report was indicating UFC PPV buy revenue was 75% of all revenues, it would be just slightly above the $300 million mark. If it was all PPV event revenues (buys, gate, sponsors), it would be closer to the latter number). The report often quoted Rob Maysey, who founded the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association. Maysey estimated the UFC's annual revenues to be between $350 and $450 million. The latter number isn't realistic, especially after a year like 2011 where PPV revenue decreased by about a third.
Furthermore, Maysey estimates that the UFC pays fighters about 5% of revenue, which would put their annual fighter payouts, using his most generous (and incorrect) estimate of $450 million, at $22.5 million. By simply taking all of the average disclosed payouts from shows where the commission released them and multiplying that average by the number of similar shows that took place in the year, it leaves us with a rough estimate of the show and win money fighters were paid by the UFC. I estimated that number to be slightly more than $21 million. Adding together the disclosed ‘Fight Night' Bonuses, which were just under $5 million, it surpasses Maysey's 5% figure. That's not even including multi-million dollar pay-per-view bonuses guys like Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre, Brock Lesnar, Alistair Overeem, and others received nor the discretionary bonuses.
It's believed to be a very rare occurrence for a fighter to not receive a discretionary bonus from the UFC. Essentially, a fighter has to do something very wrong to not get a bonus check from the UFC. Judging from fighters' responses in an article on MMAJunkie.com and former UFC fighter Sean McCorkle's post on the Underground, discretionary bonuses for many of the lower card fighters are usually equal to their show money. However, for a notable performance those bonuses can be much more, and according to Dana White they have had discretionary bonuses reach up to $1 million.
While Maysey's 5% figure is obscenely false, as well apparently is the often thrown around 10% figure, the evidence doesn't seem to support UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta's statement that fighter pay is close to 50% of revenue either.
The article went on to make the obligatory MMA and boxing comparison, noting it is very common for boxers to get 70% of revenue with the remainder going to the promoter. However, the UFC is very different from a boxing promoter. Aside from the costs related to promoting the event (advertising, production), the company has hundreds of full time employees, in many areas they have to pay higher tax rates than their boxing counterparts, they are spending money to get the sport (or aspects of it) legalized in New York, France, Australia, and more, and they're trying to spread awareness of their brand worldwide. Plus, some of their televised shows are money losers. They just have so many expenses that boxing promoters do not. That's not to say UFC fighters are paid fairly because of the UFC's other costs, but it must be considered.
Deciding on what makes fair pay for a UFC fighter is extremely difficult to pinpoint, and without knowledge of what the UFC is making it's pretty much impossible. Ultimately, it will be up to the fighters to band together and bring the issue forth, if they feel there is an issue. The ESPN article quoted an unnamed former UFC champion saying it would be "career suicide" if he participated in the piece, and realistically that's a stretch. While the UFC bosses don't seem to like it when their athletes complain about pay, those that have haven't been blacklisted. The most notable examples are Tito Oritz and Randy Couture. Granted, those at the top level like Ortiz and Couture have much more leeway than run-of-the-mill fighters because they can draw money, but that is likely true in the case of the unnamed UFC champion in the article as well. If that person feels as though there's an issue, they should bring it up and suggest what fair pay would be. If they come back with a number the likes of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are making, then they don't have much merit. Both Mayweather and Pacquiao are considerably bigger draws than any active fighter in the UFC and the business models are drastically different. If they have a valid point, then perhaps it gains attention and support. This is a time when the UFC is running a ton of shows and needs name fighters more than ever, so in theory a former UFC champion would be somewhat safe. However, until a fighter of that stature does comment on it publicly, we won't know.
UFC on FOX: Evans vs. Davis
By the Numbers
5 - Number of months since Rashad Evans vs. Phil Davis match was originally slated to take place. After a hand injury caused Jon Jones to pull out of a planned light heavyweight title defense against Evans, former NCAA wrestling champion Davis took the main event slot. At that point, it was a near guarantee that the winner of the match-up would be next in line for a title shot. However, Davis pulled out of the fight with a knee injury which sent the UFC scrambling for a replacement. Evans ended up fighting Tito Ortiz and finishing him in the second round. During the course of the fight Evans suffered a hand injury that put him out of action for a brief period. Due to that, and the UFC wanting a strong main event for their December Toronto show, Lyoto Machida was moved to the front of the line of title challengers. Now, Evans and Davis will finally fight on Saturday on FOX, and the stakes are slightly different. For Evans, those stakes are essentially the same: as long as he doesn't get injured he'll finally get the title shot that he originally earned in May of 2010. For Davis, unless he wins in a fashion that causes fans to strongly favor he fight Jones next, Dan Henderson would most likely get the title shot if Davis wins.
17 - Number of months since Chael Sonnen and Michael Bisping started their verbal warfare. Shortly after Sonnen's strong, yet losing performance against Anderson Silva, Bisping stated on Twitter that he would beat Sonnen. Days later, Sonnen responded on ESPN's MMA Live, "If Michael Bisping ever addresses me in public again, I will bury him where he stands." Even though the two weren't scheduled to fight until about a week ago, over the course of the past seventeen months they have exchanged words at certain points. The UFC and Spike TV were eager to cash in on the two strong personalities by having them coach season fourteen of The Ultimate Fighter, but Sonnen's suspension in California put a stop to those plans. With less than a week to go before the fight, the short-build has been somewhat disappointing to this point, which isn't too surprising. I would expect things to pick up a bit by the pre-fight press conference on Thursday.
10 - Number of months since the UFC debut of Chris Weidman, one of the best prospects in the middleweight division. He made his UFC debut on short notice against Alessio Sakara and defeated the Italian by decision. Two consecutive first round submissions later, Weidman is once again taking a big step on short notice, this time in taking on top-ten middleweight Demian Maia. These two match-up interestingly in that Weidman, a very good wrestler that has quickly acquired strong submission skills, will on paper be at a serious disadvantage on the ground against Maia. With the exception of perhaps Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza, Maia is the best Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner in the division and one of the best overall in the sport. Furthermore, Maia has developed his striking to the point that he's not entirely out of his element there, while we have yet to see that part of Weidman's game.
NEWS!
'King Mo' Lawal tests positive for Drostanolone. Former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Muhammed Lawal tested positive for the anabolic steroid Drostanolone following his second round TKO victory over Lorenz Larkin on January 7 in Las Vegas. Lawal's win, which came in fairly dominant fashion, hasn since been overturned to a "no contest". Both Lawal and his manager Mike Kogan have denied any knowledge of the drug's existence prior to the positive test result, let alone use of it. It seems that Mo is taking much less heat for his positive drug test than fellow Strikeforce fighter Cris "Cyborg" Santos did for hers just a couple of weeks prior. I'm not sure if that's due to people having suspicion of Santos beforehand or because they felt Santos gained much more from the usage than Lawal did. Nevertheless, it was interesting to read the contrasting reactions in the two cases.
Jorge Rivera retires. Longtime UFC fighter Jorge Rivera, 39, retired from mixed martial arts competition this past weekend after a second round TKO victory over Eric "Red" Schafer. Rivera made his UFC debut nearly ten years ago and has been with the company consistently since 2006. Though he was never an elite middleweight, he fought some of the best the division had to offer, including Michael Bisping, Rich Franklin, and Anderson Silva. From 2009 to 2010, Rivera had the best run of his UFC career, rattling off three consecutive victories against WEC transfer Nissen Osterneck, Rob Kimmons, and former title challenger Nate Quarry. Rivera was slated to fight Alessio Sakara in August of 2010, but both withdrew due to injury. The fight was rescheduled for UFC 122 in November, this time as the co-main event, but Sakara fell ill the day of the fight and it was called off. "El Conquistador" was then matched up with perennial title contender Michael Bisping in the co-main event of UFC 127. Prior to the fight, Rivera was featured in viral videos mocking Bisping, which helped add fan interest to the bout. The fight itself was controversial, with Bisping hurting Rivera with an illegal knee, which led to "The Count" finishing Rivera in the second round. After the fight Rivera was once again slated to fight Alessio Sakara, but ended up fighting Constantinos Philippou, who beat him by decision.
Zuffa to drug test new fighters. Zuffa, LLC, parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Strikeforce, has announced a new policy that will see all fighters go through a drug screening process prior to signing a contract with either mixed martial arts promotion. I really don't expect this policy to catch many fighters, as those who are using any type of drug, whether they are performance-enhancing or recreational, can get it out of their system in time for the drug test. There will be exceptions to that, and some people will at least temporarily miss out on a big opportunity due to a positive drug test, but I see that being a small percentage. A Zuffa-mandated random drug testing system would be much more successful in deterring drug use. That type of policy wouldn't be cheap, but it's a cost they can afford and a strong effort to stop use of PED's in the sport would lend some credibility to it.
That's it for this week. Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed it. You can join 116 others and follow me on Twitter if you please. Feel free to leave feedback in the comment box or at the e-mail address below.
