The UFC President confirmed in the interview that nearly 70 fighters had been cut from the UFC roster in the last several months in order to facilitate giving each fighter on the roster at least 3 fights per year.
When asked how many of those fighters make at least $50,000 per year, White answered, “Tons make that, and most make a lot more. I’d say a huge percentage,” and when pressed further White added “Easily 75 percent. Probably more than 75 percent.”
Analysis:
If Dana White’s remarks can be taken as accurate, at least 135 fighters are making more than $50,000 a year, while about 45 fighters are making less than $50,000. This figure is likely to surprise some people, but it likely won’t appease any advocates for greater fighter pay.
MMA fans and humanists, alike, will be quick to argue that no fighter in the UFC should be making less than $50,000 a year for putting his life on the line. Considering the UFC has estimated its revenues upwards of $250 million for 2008 that might be a legitimate argument.
However, I would also like to entertain the argument from the UFC’s perspective. Let’s consider what we know about current UFC pay schemes and contracts: most fighters are paid a split base salary with an additional win bonus of equal value; however, a significant proportion of their salary also comes from performance and discretionary bonuses set out in their organization contract.
Given this, I think it’s fair to assume that the 45 or so fighters making less than $50,000 are all preliminary card fighters, which contribute very little to the overall revenues of the UFC. You can deduct this from the simple reasoning that if they’re making less than $50,000 per year, they’re likely on very small entry level contracts (e.g., $3,000 to show/$3,000 to win) and they’re likely also not performing well enough to receive the performance or discretionary bonuses that the UFC is handing out to other fighters. If both of these assumptions hold, you can be rest assured that they’re also not being shown on the televised portion of PPV or Spike TV events.
It stands to reason, then, that the only revenue these fighters are helping to generate is UFC on Demand purchases or a small fraction of the live gate. Even in the case of live gate, it’s worth debating exactly how much revenue they could possibly be responsible for.
Thus, from the UFC’s perspective it’s hard to pay these types of fighters anything more than what they’re already getting, because they generate so little of the overall revenue for the organization. Additionally, The UFC could also argue from a perspective of scarcity: the 45 or so fighters making less than $50,000/year are an easily replaceable commodity relative to their more talented counterparts.
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