MMA Junkie reports the salaries for UFC 156. Despite losing on Saturday night, Rashad Evans and Alistair Overeem top the list of fighters as the UFC had a payroll over $1.7 million.
Via MMA Junkie:
Jose Aldo: $240,000 (includes $120,000 win bonus)
def. Frankie Edgar: $120,000
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira: $174,000 (includes $67,000 win bonus)
def. Rashad Evans: $300,000
Antonio Silva: $70,000 (includes no win bonus)
def. Alistair Overeem: $285,714.29
Demian Maia: $120,000 (includes $60,000 win bonus)
def. Jon Fitch: $66,000
Joseph Benavidez: $60,000 (includes $30,000 win bonus)
def. Ian McCall: $9,000
Evan Dunham: $46,000 (includes $23,000 win bonus)
def. Gleison Tibau: $33,000
Tyron Woodley: $87,000 (includes $43,500 win bonus)
def. Jay Hieron: $12,000
Bobby Green: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Jacob Volkmann: $22,000
Isaac Vallie-Flagg: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Yves Edwards: $21,000
Dustin Kimura: $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus)
def. Chico Camus: $8,000
Payout Perspective:
Interesting that Edgar and Aldo make the same base amount. Evans is a draw and his salary reflects it. It will be interesting to see what happens when/if his fight contract ends to see what the UFC will do in terms of restructuring (read: lower). In addition, Overeem’s $286K (rounding up) purse will include ⅓ of his $1 million signing bonus. So, Overeem will make approximately $619K for Saturday night. Its not known if any of his purse/bonus would be paid to Golden Glory as part of that settlement. We still list Evans as the top paid for the card based on the reported payouts excluding any other bonuses not reported.
An interesting fact is that 7 out of 20 or 35% of the fighters had $10K/$10K (show/win) or lower fight contracts and 4 out of 20 or 20% of the fighters had $100K/$100K contracts. (via MMA Supremacy).
Multiple fighters on this card have PPV percentages in their contract… Overeem, Edgar, Evans, maybe Aldo…. Do they all get their PPV % ? How would the UFC make any money from the card if they pay all their PPV % ???
Thats the interesting part. I believe you have to be a main event or co main event to get the PPV cut. That would really be the only way that you can even afford to keep older starts. For example Tito and Hughes would have been very hard to keep around being the 3rd fight on many cards if they got a cut of PPVs with the other guys headlining.
Another thing that helps the UFC not take to much of a hit. Atleast on this card. It is likely isnt going to sell a ton of PPV’s. Most PPV contracts dont kick in until a set number of buys. We know Overeem gets $2 for every buy over 500,000. But not sure if he gets anything before that. Some fighters get $1 after 200,000 and then it jumps to $2 at 400-500,000.
I wouldnt be surrpised if Aldo or Frankie do not have the leverage to get a PPV with no history of being a PPV draw. They got good salary and i cant see those guys without being stronger draws getting paid much more than that. Maybe Aldo could if he can use a possible appeal in brazil. BUt doubtful. So we really are only looking at Evans and OVereem with a PPV cut and it wont sell enough for Overeem to get anything. Evans might get an extra $200,000 for his cut at the most.
So it is a good idea for the UFC to structure these cuts like this. Lets face it. IF these fighters cant draw no more buys than they are then they shoudlnt get a cut. Overeem gets a big salary. IF he cant draw 500K he shouldnt get any bonus pay. So this PPV should have hurt them when it comes to PPV buys. But there are others i wouldnt say the same. Like UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi with Anderson Silva, Bj Penn, and Matt Hughes. That event did 500,000 Buys.
I can’t imagine a champion and shortly removed former champion not having a PPV cut. I think it’s as much about leverage for the UFC to give it to them as it is for them to squeeze it out of the UFC. If Dana pays these guys big money voluntarily, they have no reason to try and leave and cause a big stir like Randy did when he “resigned”.
Overeem gets $2 per PPV buy for all UFC PPV revenues over $500,000. That would come out to about 10,000 PPV buys. This card will do more than 10k PPV…
Not revenue Dfd, buys.
Pursuant to the terms of Overeem’s UFC contract as outlined in the complaint, he is guaranteed a “bout fee” of $264,285 on Dec. 30. Should he defeat Lesnar, Overeem would receive an additional $121,428 “win bonus.” Overeem is also in line to receive a $2 pay-per-view bonus per viewer, “for all REVENUES received by UFC-Zuffa for telecast of the Lesnar fight in the United States, Canada or over the internet in excess of $500,000.”
Nick
It would be very hard for anyone to justify Frankie getting a PPV cut. He is notoriously a bad draw and hasn’t been able to win fights decisively. The UFC can’t just go giving every fighter a PPV cut. When to many fighters have it it becomes hard to work with them. Especially the lighter fighter who are used on Fox. When fighters have a PPV cut they will refuse to fight off of PPV. They also try to control who is on their cards. For example everyone with a PPV cut wanted on Brocks events because they knew it would do huge numbers.
No offense here but your opinion or what a fighter is worthy doesnt matter. Everyone has a different opinion. I think Frankie is over paid. But what he is worth is decided by the UFC and not us. They take into account how much money a fighter brings in and Frankie at this point has been dead weight. I. Fact his best value is in building up other fighter who are much better draws. Like Aldo and Benson.
Being $500,000 doesn’t make sense. Not when Coutures old contract mentions specific buys 5-6 years ago and the Alverez contract a couple weeks ago has the same structure. No reason to think it became more complicated in between. The reason Overeem is at 500k buys rather than 200k like other fighters IMO is Reems large signing bonus and him not having much leverage since SF did t pay very well.
I sit corrected. That’s a hell of a good deal if true. How much revenue does the UFC get frome every buy? ~$30?
Diego, close to $25 per my sources.
I still do not believe Reems cut starts at $500K. The only source we have is a 3rd party which was Overeems former Gym. They could have easily mistaken that for $$$. Like i said before when Overeems contract come to light. It doesnt make sense for the UFC to put this number in there when it only saves them about $40,000. It would be better to just make it all PPVs. We are really unsure if GG worked the Overeem deal. So we are not sure they knew for sure what the details were. After all before Reem signed the UFC fired a few GG fighters. So there was issues between GG and the UFC. Maybe someone else brokered the deal for Overeem.
IF Reem is getting a cut of all PPVs basically then the math isnt there for the UFC to be very profitable at all. Basically it would push the fighter pay for this event to around $4 million on 500K buys. More if Frankie and Aldo get cuts. The numbers just dont support it. No other fighter contract supports it either. It not only doesnt make sense but it is unprecedented.
So the UFC needs 20,000 buys before AO’s cut kicks in. Thats very good for him! I wonder how the UFC structures their “locker room bonus” I suspect it’s all subjective, i.e. company men get the most, but i’d still be interested in seeing the actual amounts. We know uncle creepy got an extra $25K for the MM fight.