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Originally Posted by Assani Fisher
Yeah, those contracts definitely suck if you're a legit fighter who has star power. But for an average joe who is working a normal job, making a minimum of $50K/year to do something you love really isn't the worst thing in the world.
What does everyone think about the state of contracts in general? I could be wrong, but UFC drastically underpays their athletes compared to most sports(boxing in particular), no?
UFC does alright I think.
Their stars make less than boxing stars. Mayweather and Pacman make 20M+ a fight. Other boxing stars make a few million a fight. But boxing is a viciously top heavy sport. Beyond the top 10-15 boxers, boxers get paid ****. If you are an up and coming guy fighting on undercards, you get paid ****.
The UFC is a little more democratic. The top guys like GSP and Brock are probably making a few million a fight considering PPV % cuts. But there's a whole range of undercard fighters who are paid better than undercard fighters in boxing. UFC 109, to pick a random example where the info is on wiki, showed the undercard fighters making an average of 16,250, which is way more than what a typical boxing undercard would be getting. The main card fighters earned an average of 98,900 (not counting any Couture PPV %), which I think is pretty good considering there weren't really any huge outliers with massive pay on this card. The UFC also has a 60-75K FOTN bonus, KO-OTN and SOTN bonus that any fighter is eligible for. Mark Munoz, Kendall Grove, Rafael Dos Anjos and DaMarques Johnson, none of whom sniffs the top 25 of their weight class, all just took home 75K from UFC 112 in bonus money in addition to their regular pay.
I think this works the way it does because MMA fans usually buy the card for more than just a single fighter. In boxing, you buy a card for one fight, and usually just for one fighter in the one fight. That guy will typically own his own promotion company, so he's really getting paid to fight and to promote. In the UFC, all promotion, advertising, and risk is handled centrally so that's a cut the fighters don't get. But since people want stacked cards for MMA, the UFC pays more democratically. The top stars get less but the undercard fighters do better.