Tweet
INSIDE THE NUMBERS FOR UFC SALARIES
The popularity of mixed martial arts in the United States continues to grow at a rapid pace, and for much of 2005 many people (including myself) have been waiting to see the hugely increased revenue and popularity of the sport pay off for the fighters in the form of increased salaries. The year is just about over, and we're still waiting. So, prior to offering a full breakdown of all the recent UFC salaries, the general trend in UFC salaries needs to be addressed.
In early 2005, The Ultimate Fighter television show was first airing on Spike TV, and the UFC's mainstream recognition went through the roof compared to 2004, when you could only see first-run material on pay-per-view. When the salaries of UFC fighters did not increase in early 2005, I brought this to your attention but naturally felt that the pay scale wasn't going to increase overnight and that it would take a little while for the higher revenue to be reflected in higher salaries.
Over the summer of 2005, this concern grew as more shows took place. As a general trend, the salaries were still not increasing, even with the extremely lucrative contract that Zuffa scored for The Ultimate Fighter 2. I expressed concern about this and proposed a new minimum salary for UFC fighters (an amount that would still be fairly low: $5,000 to fight and an additional $5,000 to win). However, the possibility still existed that Zuffa was just being a little bit slow in the process of making its fighters' salaries more proportionate to the company's own huge increases in revenue.
Now, with the UFC having run its last event of 2005, the fighters' salaries have still not increased, and on the whole they appear to have actually decreased slightly. MMAWeekly has been bringing you the full scoop on fighter salaries for several years, and throughout that time, most everyone associated with the sport has agreed that MMA fighters deserve to be paid a lot more than they actually get paid. However, in the period of 2001 through 2004, Zuffa could legitimately say that it was losing money on most UFC events, and it honestly couldn't afford to pay the fighters more.
In 2005, that simply isn't the case anymore. The UFC is now a mainstream fixture on cable television. It draws higher advertising rates per-viewer than WWE programming. Zuffa had drawn a million-dollar live gate less than ten times from 2001 to 2004, and it now draws a million-dollar live gate for every PPV event even if there is no marquee main event. Pay-per-view buyrates and revenue are up, as is sponsorship revenue. Zuffa gets paid a "rights fee" from Spike TV for every single episode that is produced of UFC Unleashed, The Ultimate Fighter, or a live fight special. On top of that, the Wrestling Observer has reported that Zuffa gets approximately half of the advertising revenue that is derived from The Ultimate Fighter, which would easily be a seven-figure dollar amount on its own.
All of this additional revenue that simply didn't exist in late 2004 is now in abundance in 2005, and yet the UFC just put on a live TV special in October with the lowest Total Fighter Payroll of any UFC event since Zuffa bought the UFC. Just a couple of weeks ago, the UFC 56 pay-per-view had the lowest Total Fighter Payroll of any UFC PPV that Zuffa has ever held in the state of Nevada.
The top-level fighters are making practically the same amount of money per fight that they were making before the Zuffa revenue boom of 2005, and in some cases they are making literally the same exact amount. One example is Matt Hughes, who got paid the same exact amount by Zuffa in late 2005 that he got paid in 2004, 2003, and 2002.
The entry-level fighters who used to be making peanuts are still making peanuts, and as I wrote earlier this year, Zuffa should be embarrassed to be paying any fighter $2,000 to fight and $2,000 to win, given how mainstream and lucrative the sport now is compared to where it was. Many fighters make a lot more money from sponsorships than they used to, but then again, so does Zuffa, which is just one of the half-dozen aforementioned reasons that they can afford to pay fighters a lot more.
The time is over for fans, fighters, and managers to merely wait and hope that Zuffa does the right thing at some point, because Zuffa has now had a whole year to ratchet up the pay scale and they have failed to do so. When I get e-mails following the publication of one of these salary articles with readers saying that they can't believe how little UFC fighters actually make, I used to be able to tell those people, "Well, Zuffa isn't making a lot of money, so you can't realistically expect to see UFC fighters make what they deserve until the UFC starts to make a lot of money." What is there for anyone to say now in response to such e-mails? "Actually, Zuffa is making a ton of money now, but they would apparently rather keep that money to themselves rather than sharing a larger percentage of it with the fighters who put their bodies on the line in the cage"?
I don't want to hear that this is some kind of anti-UFC bias or that I'm not "supporting the sport." Facts are facts: Zuffa's revenue has drastically increased over the past year, while the average fighter salaries have not. There is no pro-UFC bias or anti-UFC bias in the world that is going to change that basic truth. As for "supporting the sport," don't you think the first thing that a true fan of MMA should want is for the fighters to be compensated fairly for their services?
Would it be better to smile and pretend that Zuffa's revenues are the same now that they were in late 2004, or to draw attention to the fact that revenues are up drastically while fighter salaries remain largely unchanged? How "supportive" of the sport is it to watch a UFC event knowing that at least half of the fighters who compete in the UFC have to hold down non-fighting jobs to make ends meet, when that doesn't necessarily have to be the case for many of those fighters?
None of us can precisely determine that "X fighter deserves to be paid X amount per fight" and then do the same thing for the entire UFC roster. However, all it takes is common sense and the slightest bit of business knowledge to come to the conclusion that with Zuffa's revenues at an all-time high, the average salaries of UFC fighters should not be staying the same as they were before the revenue boom, and they sure as hell shouldn't be decreasing.
What follows is a complete salary breakdown for three recent UFC events, followed by my commentary and analysis on each event's salaries.
"UFC Ultimate Fight Night 2" Fighter Salaries
Event took place on October 3, 2005
-Evan Tanner: $20,000 ($20,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $22,000)
-David Loiseau: $10,000 ($5,000 for fighting; $5,000 win bonus)
-Chris Leben: $10,000 ($5,000 for fighting; $5,000 win bonus)
-Drew Fickett: $8,000 ($4,000 for fighting; $4,000 win bonus)
-Brandon Vera: $6,000 ($3,000 for fighting; $3,000 win bonus)
-Josh Koscheck: $5,000 ($5,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $5,000)
-Spencer Fisher: $4,000 ($2,000 for fighting; $2,000 win bonus)
-Jonathan Goulet: $4,000 ($2,000 for fighting; $2,000 win bonus)
-Jon Fitch: $4,000 ($2,000 for fighting; $2,000 win bonus)
-Fabiano Scherner: $3,000 ($3,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $3,000)
-Edwin Dewees: $2,000 ($2,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $2,000)
-Thiago Alves: $2,000 ($2,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $2,000)
-Jay Hieron: $2,000 ($2,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $2,000)
-Brock Larson: $2,000 ($2,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $2,000)
Total Fighter Payroll: $82,000 (average of $5,857 per fighter)
Commentary and Analysis:
-This event had the lowest Total Fighter Payroll of any event in the history of the UFC since it was purchased by Zuffa. There were no huge names on this card, but this only draws more attention to the fact that the bottom rung of UFC fighters is making an embarrassing amount of money.
I have written before that the minimum salary for any UFC fighter in any given fight should be at least $5,000 to fight and an additional $5,000 to win. Certainly, it would not put Zuffa out of business (or even put them in the red) to have a minimum salary of $10,000 to fight and an additional $10,000 to win, but it would be a huge step in the right direction even if half that amount were to be implemented.
In the past, one could honestly say that the fighters making less than the "$5,000/$5,000" figure were fairly rare in the big picture of the UFC pay scale, but that can no longer be said. With the UFC running more shows and bringing in more fighters than ever before, there are all too many fighters who are fighting for peanuts. Looking at this event specifically, only four of the fourteen fighters met the $5,000/$5,000 standard, and only one fighter surpassed that amount.
It should be even more embarrassing for Zuffa that with the UFC's mainstream media credibility at an all-time high and with the company's revenues increasing dramatically, they
The popularity of mixed martial arts in the United States continues to grow at a rapid pace, and for much of 2005 many people (including myself) have been waiting to see the hugely increased revenue and popularity of the sport pay off for the fighters in the form of increased salaries. The year is just about over, and we're still waiting. So, prior to offering a full breakdown of all the recent UFC salaries, the general trend in UFC salaries needs to be addressed.
In early 2005, The Ultimate Fighter television show was first airing on Spike TV, and the UFC's mainstream recognition went through the roof compared to 2004, when you could only see first-run material on pay-per-view. When the salaries of UFC fighters did not increase in early 2005, I brought this to your attention but naturally felt that the pay scale wasn't going to increase overnight and that it would take a little while for the higher revenue to be reflected in higher salaries.
Over the summer of 2005, this concern grew as more shows took place. As a general trend, the salaries were still not increasing, even with the extremely lucrative contract that Zuffa scored for The Ultimate Fighter 2. I expressed concern about this and proposed a new minimum salary for UFC fighters (an amount that would still be fairly low: $5,000 to fight and an additional $5,000 to win). However, the possibility still existed that Zuffa was just being a little bit slow in the process of making its fighters' salaries more proportionate to the company's own huge increases in revenue.
Now, with the UFC having run its last event of 2005, the fighters' salaries have still not increased, and on the whole they appear to have actually decreased slightly. MMAWeekly has been bringing you the full scoop on fighter salaries for several years, and throughout that time, most everyone associated with the sport has agreed that MMA fighters deserve to be paid a lot more than they actually get paid. However, in the period of 2001 through 2004, Zuffa could legitimately say that it was losing money on most UFC events, and it honestly couldn't afford to pay the fighters more.
In 2005, that simply isn't the case anymore. The UFC is now a mainstream fixture on cable television. It draws higher advertising rates per-viewer than WWE programming. Zuffa had drawn a million-dollar live gate less than ten times from 2001 to 2004, and it now draws a million-dollar live gate for every PPV event even if there is no marquee main event. Pay-per-view buyrates and revenue are up, as is sponsorship revenue. Zuffa gets paid a "rights fee" from Spike TV for every single episode that is produced of UFC Unleashed, The Ultimate Fighter, or a live fight special. On top of that, the Wrestling Observer has reported that Zuffa gets approximately half of the advertising revenue that is derived from The Ultimate Fighter, which would easily be a seven-figure dollar amount on its own.
All of this additional revenue that simply didn't exist in late 2004 is now in abundance in 2005, and yet the UFC just put on a live TV special in October with the lowest Total Fighter Payroll of any UFC event since Zuffa bought the UFC. Just a couple of weeks ago, the UFC 56 pay-per-view had the lowest Total Fighter Payroll of any UFC PPV that Zuffa has ever held in the state of Nevada.
The top-level fighters are making practically the same amount of money per fight that they were making before the Zuffa revenue boom of 2005, and in some cases they are making literally the same exact amount. One example is Matt Hughes, who got paid the same exact amount by Zuffa in late 2005 that he got paid in 2004, 2003, and 2002.
The entry-level fighters who used to be making peanuts are still making peanuts, and as I wrote earlier this year, Zuffa should be embarrassed to be paying any fighter $2,000 to fight and $2,000 to win, given how mainstream and lucrative the sport now is compared to where it was. Many fighters make a lot more money from sponsorships than they used to, but then again, so does Zuffa, which is just one of the half-dozen aforementioned reasons that they can afford to pay fighters a lot more.
The time is over for fans, fighters, and managers to merely wait and hope that Zuffa does the right thing at some point, because Zuffa has now had a whole year to ratchet up the pay scale and they have failed to do so. When I get e-mails following the publication of one of these salary articles with readers saying that they can't believe how little UFC fighters actually make, I used to be able to tell those people, "Well, Zuffa isn't making a lot of money, so you can't realistically expect to see UFC fighters make what they deserve until the UFC starts to make a lot of money." What is there for anyone to say now in response to such e-mails? "Actually, Zuffa is making a ton of money now, but they would apparently rather keep that money to themselves rather than sharing a larger percentage of it with the fighters who put their bodies on the line in the cage"?
I don't want to hear that this is some kind of anti-UFC bias or that I'm not "supporting the sport." Facts are facts: Zuffa's revenue has drastically increased over the past year, while the average fighter salaries have not. There is no pro-UFC bias or anti-UFC bias in the world that is going to change that basic truth. As for "supporting the sport," don't you think the first thing that a true fan of MMA should want is for the fighters to be compensated fairly for their services?
Would it be better to smile and pretend that Zuffa's revenues are the same now that they were in late 2004, or to draw attention to the fact that revenues are up drastically while fighter salaries remain largely unchanged? How "supportive" of the sport is it to watch a UFC event knowing that at least half of the fighters who compete in the UFC have to hold down non-fighting jobs to make ends meet, when that doesn't necessarily have to be the case for many of those fighters?
None of us can precisely determine that "X fighter deserves to be paid X amount per fight" and then do the same thing for the entire UFC roster. However, all it takes is common sense and the slightest bit of business knowledge to come to the conclusion that with Zuffa's revenues at an all-time high, the average salaries of UFC fighters should not be staying the same as they were before the revenue boom, and they sure as hell shouldn't be decreasing.
What follows is a complete salary breakdown for three recent UFC events, followed by my commentary and analysis on each event's salaries.
"UFC Ultimate Fight Night 2" Fighter Salaries
Event took place on October 3, 2005
-Evan Tanner: $20,000 ($20,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $22,000)
-David Loiseau: $10,000 ($5,000 for fighting; $5,000 win bonus)
-Chris Leben: $10,000 ($5,000 for fighting; $5,000 win bonus)
-Drew Fickett: $8,000 ($4,000 for fighting; $4,000 win bonus)
-Brandon Vera: $6,000 ($3,000 for fighting; $3,000 win bonus)
-Josh Koscheck: $5,000 ($5,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $5,000)
-Spencer Fisher: $4,000 ($2,000 for fighting; $2,000 win bonus)
-Jonathan Goulet: $4,000 ($2,000 for fighting; $2,000 win bonus)
-Jon Fitch: $4,000 ($2,000 for fighting; $2,000 win bonus)
-Fabiano Scherner: $3,000 ($3,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $3,000)
-Edwin Dewees: $2,000 ($2,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $2,000)
-Thiago Alves: $2,000 ($2,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $2,000)
-Jay Hieron: $2,000 ($2,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $2,000)
-Brock Larson: $2,000 ($2,000 for fighting; win bonus would have been $2,000)
Total Fighter Payroll: $82,000 (average of $5,857 per fighter)
Commentary and Analysis:
-This event had the lowest Total Fighter Payroll of any event in the history of the UFC since it was purchased by Zuffa. There were no huge names on this card, but this only draws more attention to the fact that the bottom rung of UFC fighters is making an embarrassing amount of money.
I have written before that the minimum salary for any UFC fighter in any given fight should be at least $5,000 to fight and an additional $5,000 to win. Certainly, it would not put Zuffa out of business (or even put them in the red) to have a minimum salary of $10,000 to fight and an additional $10,000 to win, but it would be a huge step in the right direction even if half that amount were to be implemented.
In the past, one could honestly say that the fighters making less than the "$5,000/$5,000" figure were fairly rare in the big picture of the UFC pay scale, but that can no longer be said. With the UFC running more shows and bringing in more fighters than ever before, there are all too many fighters who are fighting for peanuts. Looking at this event specifically, only four of the fourteen fighters met the $5,000/$5,000 standard, and only one fighter surpassed that amount.
It should be even more embarrassing for Zuffa that with the UFC's mainstream media credibility at an all-time high and with the company's revenues increasing dramatically, they
Comment