MMA Junkie reports that Alistair Overeem’s fight purse for his win at UFC 141 was paid to Overeem although initial reports had Golden Glory’s lawyers obtaining an order to garnish his wages.
The problem was that a bond required to execute the garnishment order was not deposited. Thus, the order to withhold a portion of Overeem’s pay was not binding.
Keith Kizer confirmed that the Nevada State Athletic Commission did not withhold the pay.
Via MMA Junkie:
A UFC official confirmed that a $200,000 bond required to execute the order was not deposited prior to the event.
The order requested a check totaling $241,285.49 be cut from UFC parent company Zuffa to Golden Glory’s corporate parent, Knockout Investments. The money included Overeem’s show and win purses, performance bonuses and proceeds from the event’s pay-per-view broadcast.
The day before the court order, Golden Glory filed suit alleging heavyweight did not pay a 30 percent commission owed to the team for a fight in June against Fabricio Werdum. In his suit, Overeem claimed the team owed him $151,000 in back pay and asked a judge to determine whether his contract is enforceable.
Knockout Investiments (KOI) and Golden Glory representatives indicated that they would continue with this strategy:
“Seeking the initial writ was merely the first step in a long-term litigation strategy that KOI and Golden Glory will prosecute in Nevada. The writ of attachment remedy remains fully available to my clients and will be sought as to Mr. Overeem’s future pay-per-view payout, which we expect will be more lucrative than his initial fight purse.”
Overeem earns a portion of all pay-per-view revenue, including $2 per PPV purchase “for all revenues received by UFC-Zuffa for telecast of the Lesnar fight in the U.S., Canada or over the Internet in excess of $500,000,” according to an Overeem contract made public by the legal proceedings.
“Rest assured, now that we have had the opportunity to troubleshoot complex international hurdles – and without a long holiday weekend to contend with – future writs of attachment will be utilized to ensure that Mr. Overeem makes good on the commissions owed to my clients and his Golden Glory training team, who helped him achieve the success he now enjoys,” Lindblom stated.
Payout Perspective:
The writ of attachment and request to garnish Overeem’s wages is an indication of how heated this lawsuit will get. Of course, the failure to follow procedure in garnishment is a glaring error. It was inferred from by KOI and GG reps that there was trouble with legal procedure due to the Christmas and New Year’s holiday as well as the “international hurdles.” We are not Nevada attorneys so we are not privy to the type of proceeding that was initiated and the type of order issued by the judge. But as an example, in my jurisdiction a bond is needed in these type of proceedings in the event that the attachment is wrongful. The reason being is that in an attachment hearing (to garnish someone’s wages) there only need be a showing that the claims have “probable validity” and have “probable cause.” Thus, the threshhold to prove something could still be in doubt. In Nevada, KOI and GG had to put up a surety bond of $200,000 to garnish a portion of Overeem’s $385K fight purse. For whatever reason, it did not do so.
The other interesting fact out of this story is the amount of money Overeem makes. MMAPayout is in the process of trying to obtain a copy of the contract and will report on our findings once we receive it.
Overeem pay based on 800K UFC 141 PPV Buys:
[((23K*45)/2 = $500K in revenue) * 0] + (777K PPV Buys * $2) + $385K (disclosed pay) + $333K (signing bonus) = $2.27M
Jose, by your calculations Overeem gets a portion from the Total PPV buys [in excess of $500,000].
Are the fighters paid from the total PPV buys or the UFC’s share [50/50 w Spike] of the pie?
Just curious because that would change your calculation above. Assuming Oveerem is paid from the UFC portion of PPV Buys: (338.5K *2) +385K + 333K = $1.49M
Either way, it is still a good payout.
Assuming of course that they sold 800k PPVs.
Diego – I’m “Assuming” you’d know we’re only assuming here. Since I did use the word “Assuming” in my comment. I’ll just “Assume” you missed it.
A few things dont add up. The $500,000 seems pointless and way off from what the UFC used with Couture and i assume Liddell. Why would the UFC put such a small number as their fail safe PPV buys before the PPV cut? Zuffa hasnt sold below 200,000 buys for a live US event ever. Why not count something so small as 50,000 buys? That is pointless and would only mean $100K to the fighter out of a million if this version is correct.
Are we sure the 500,000 is dollars and not PPV buys? When Couture was getting a cut his check were for about 500K each fight. It seems much more likely that Overeem gets $2 for every PPV over 500,000 buys. Which means an 800,000 buy event will give him $2 for 300,000 buys or $600,000 for his cut of PPVs. With his $385,000 fight purse he would make about 1 million for the fight not counting his signing bonus.
This seems more likely. Why would the UFC give him a contract that pays over 2 million when he was not being paid anything close to that before? He would have taken MUCH less to fight in the UFC with out making him the 1st or 2nd highest paid fighter in UFC history before you even know if he is a draw or not.
I cant wait for clarification on this. The original numbers are hard to believe.
Henry,
I was assuming your assumption was that he was paid from the UFC portion of PPV buys and wasn’t sure if you were making the double assumption that there were 800k buys. While not wanting to make an ass out of you and me I wanted to highlight that Overeem may not be a millionaire just yet.
BS,
Hopefully we get our hands on a copy of the contract and can dissect it. Without a doubt this is more than I thought Overeem was getting, and it suggests that guys like GSP and Brock are doing very well indeed. It will still be unclear as to how many fighters have this kind of PPV share – do non-drawing champs like like Aldo and Cruz get a cut? What about popular fighters who have never held a UFC title like Wanderlei? Does GSP get $3-4 per PPV since he’s been a draw for such a long time or is $2 the standard? There will be a lot of questions remaining, but the contract will be a huge data source for our discussions.
And lets not forget that his PPV share is based on buys. Overeem may very well be getting over $2M, which as you pointed out has to be significantly more than he was making before (by a factor of 5 to 10) but if buys are low he will make less. No wonder he didn’t want Brock to retire, he wants a re-match with the UFC’s biggest draw.
With these numbers we can now fully understand why Overeem & GG are battling. We are now seeing the sport evolve to a true Pro level. The Boxing model now has a $$ competitor. K-1 has hit the skids although Japan was the bank for GG before it fell apart. It would be interesting to see what Asia’s newest ONEFC promotion is paying.
Fantastic info and discussion.
I agree. Diego. Cant wait for more info. I just find it hard to believe that Overeem would make $1 million for a event that drew 300K buys total. 300K is not good numbers for the UFC and i doubt they are going to be careless enough to pay someone so much for such a bad PPV. PPV % has always been reserved for the biggest draws. I believe there is always a fail safe that assures the event has to big big before the fighter gets his cut. Using 500K PPV buys as the starting point of PPV % would do many things. 1. Assure the event was indeed big before giving all the profits to the fighter. 2. It would create a way out of the PPV % if a fighter was no longer a big draw. Tito and Hughes for example have all gotten a cut of PPV. But using the 500K buys clause would mean they are no longer getting over 1 million per fight because there events now max out at 500K buys. This means the UFC can still aford to use Hughes and Tito and not lose their ass. Just as long as they dont put them on a card with a huge draw like GSP,Silva, or Brock.
BrainSmasher, Diego, Henry:
Here is the exact language from the complaint, which details the contract:
A “Pay Per View” bonus of $2.00/view for each viewer, for all revenues received by UFC-Zuffa for telecast of the Lesnar fight in the US, Canada or over the internet in excess of $500,000.00.”
We will post a link and some more details ASAP.
– Jose