By Andreas Hale
Hey, did you hear the news? You know, the news that Dana White and Conor McGregor have come to an agreement for their side of the negotiations with Floyd Mayweather? The news had everyone who doesn’t know any better hyped up to see a boxing match between a semi-retired undefeated hall of famer and a mixed martial artist who has never boxed professionally in his life.
If you aren’t excited about this “news,” you shouldn’t be. You probably know better than to get enthusiastic about a fight that has about as much of an opportunity to be competitive as LeBron James does beating Serena Williams in a tennis match. But, more importantly, you likely realize that this news isn’t really news at all.
Listen, if you get excited about one side of the conversation coming to an agreement about their side – and their side only – you really have a misinterpretation about how negotiations work. Who cares that Conor McGregor has a “historic” deal with his promoter? Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen? Floyd Mayweather coming to an agreement with Al Haymon was never a major hurdle that needed to be cleared before a fight with Manny Pacquiao was made. But, for some reason, McGregor and White agreeing on how much money the Irishman should make is newsworthy?
Well, kudos to McGregor for being a master of self-promotion and having the ability to make something so trivial become the biggest story in combat sports. But the reality is that the only revenue split that matters is the one between Maywather and the owners of the UFC, WME-IMG. Everything else is just noise. Or, more importantly for the McGregor/White side: posturing. By saying “we’ve come to an agreement and are waiting on Mayweather,” you are essentially setting up the dominoes to fall in your favor when it comes to public opinion. The casual fan doesn’t care about negotiations. All they hear is “Oh, McGregor signed? Well, if the fight doesn’t happen it is Floyd Mayweather’s fault.”
And that cannot be further from the truth. But it sure sounds good for McGregor.
Obviously, McGregor wants to maximize his earning potential and negotiated a split of the proceeds with Dana White that would be favorable to him. But all of that can get blown up at the negotiating table if Mayweather and Al Haymon look at what White presents to them and say “nah.” Maybe they won’t be too thrilled with McGregor’s earning compared to what Mayweather believes he should make. Perhaps the money for the UFC to step aside and allow Showtime to handle the production will be too much for them to part with. Hell, maybe Dana White and Conor McGregor agreed to pay McGregor $100 million dollars. That won’t sit right with Mayweather.
We’re no closer to this fight being made now than we were several months ago.
The fact that the most trivial of details were haggled upon for years leading up to Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao shouldn’t be lost in this conversation…and those two competed in the same sport! There are a lot more nuances involved in making the Mayweather-McGregor fight a reality. And these things are often lost in translation when your favorite sports talking head -- who knows nothing about boxing or MMA – starts ranting on their talk show about who should be the A-side, which fighter is scared and a bunch of other nonsense that is more of a promotional tool than anything that should bear relevance on the fight being made.
With a fight of this nature being unprecedented, trying to predict what the revenue will be from everything from sponsorships and live gate to foreign television rights will be extraordinarily difficult. Some say it could be on par with Mayweather-Pacquiao while others don’t see it coming close to that 4.6 million PPV buyrate and the ridiculous $72 million dollar gate.
Whatever the split ends up being, you had better believe that Floyd Mayweather will walk away with the lion’s share of the money. He’s been here before when it comes to commanding earnings over $50 million while McGregor has yet to have any of his fights come close to $20 million. To pay a fighter who has never competed professionally in boxing three to five times more than they have ever earned is going to be a tough pill to swallow for Team Mayweather.
More importantly, there are a lot of pieces of the pie being split up between WME-IMG, McGregor, Mayweather, Haymon and Showtime. Don’t get me wrong, there is more than enough money to go around but egos will surely get in the way of getting the details of this deal ironed out.
Those of us that know better are aware that the biggest fight won’t be the one that takes place in the boxing ring between these two. Honestly, that will be the least competitive part of this entire promotion. But the epic trash talking that would surely ensue and the level of interest generated by all of the outside forces who are going all-in on this freakshow stand to have the most to gain.
The devil is in the details but don’t be led to believe that McGregor and Dana White are the ones holding the pitchfork.