Comparing fighter pay with other major sports.

[acannxr]

Numbers are taken from 2018.

NFL: $16.88 billion
Median Salary: $860,000
Median Salary % of Total Revenue: 0.000051

MLB: $10.3 billion
Median Salary: $1,500,000
Median Salary % of Total Revenue: 0.000146

NBA: $8.76 billion
Median Salary: $2,500,000
Median Salary % of Total Revenue: 0.000285

UFC: 0.6 billion
Equivalent Median Salary Range (based on NFL, MLB, and NBA %): $30,569 to $171,233

One website reported the median salary for UFC fighters in 2018 was $68,500 which is a greater percentage than the NFL and about $10,000 shy of being on par with MLB. That same website reported that the median salary for boxers in the same year was only $51,370.

The problem with comparing the UFC and how other major sports split their revenue is that those other major sports make so much more money than the UFC (15-28x more) that they can afford to split revenue to a greater extent than the UFC.

Let's put it this way: the revenue gap between the NBA and the UFC is the same revenue gap between the UFC and the WNBA.

 

[Kvothe_the_kingkiller]

Here's an interesting thought experiment.

Let's say you (reader, not acannxr) could double UFC fighter pay tomorrow, from 20% gross to 40% gross. How would you distribute it?

1. Triple the starting win and show money?
2. Double all win and show money for non-champs?
3. Double championship pay and keep everyone else the same?
4. Other?

Rest assured, there is no one answer that will satisfy everyone.

I personally would like to triple starting pay and middle tier pay, pay top contenders more to fight each other, and lower championship pay. Then maybe #4's would stop holding out for a title shot if fighting #2 paid more and fighting the champ paid less. But that would never happen. What would happen is, top fighters would demand a bigger share of the bigger pie. And we'd still be complaining that a prelim fighter made $15k/$15k while Jones made $10m instead of the current $5m.

 

[Usurper123]

count the number of games they play vs the number of fights and calculate it per fight/games.

 

[Huligani]

I only care about my own pay.

 

[Kryptt]

# of Games played per year/# of Fights per year.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

• No win money, only show money.
• Guaranteed minimum 3 fight contracts where you can't be cut after a loss (it should be illegal to be able to cancel a contract if a fighter loses, but they are stuck fighting for you if they win)
• No "freezing out" fighters by offering them short-notice fights they will refuse and then can be put on the sidelines for months before you have to offer them more fights.

The funny thing is that all those changes don't even involve paying them more really (except the first one), it just limits the UFC's ability to strong-arm fighters.

The irony of the UFC's stranglehold on the sport is it legitimately makes worse fights and makes fighters fight more conservative since their career is always on the line with a single loss/bad performance.