MMA Junkie reports the salaries for UFC 194. Conor McGregor headed the list of fighters on the payroll disclosed at over $2.5 million.
The paydays were obtained by Junkie from the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
Conor McGregor: $500,000 (no win bonus)
def. Jose Aldo: $400,000
Luke Rockhold: $160,000 (includes $80,000 win bonus)
def. Chris Weidman: $275,000
Yoel Romero: $150,000 (includes $25,000 win bonus)
def. Ronaldo Souza: $135,000
Demian Maia: $156,000 (includes $78,000 win bonus)
def. Gunnar Nelson: $75,000
Max Holloway: $90,000 (includes $45,000 win bonus)
def. Jeremy Stephens: $43,000
Urijah Faber: $300,000 (includes $150,000 win bonus)
def. Frankie Saenz: $20,000
Tecia Torres: $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus)
def. Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger: $10,000
Warlley Alves: $42,000 (includes $21,000 win bonus)
def. Colby Covington: $18,000
Leonardo Santos: $40,000 (includes $20,o00 win bonus)
def. Kevin Lee: $21,000
Magomed Mustafaev: $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus)
def. Joe Proctor: $13,000
Yancy Medeiros: $42,000 (includes $21,000 win bonus)
def. John Makdessi: $30,000
Court McGee: $48,000 (includes $24,000 win bonus)
def. Marcio Alexandre Jr.: $12,000
Payout Perspective:
As we know, the disclosed payouts do not include locker room bonuses or PPV upsides as in the case for McGregor, Aldo, Weidman and maybe Rockhold.
Notably, McGregor (along with Chad Mendes) made $500K at UFC 189 in July. Aldo made $400K. Chris Weidman ($275K), Yoel Romero ($125K), Ronaldo Souza ($135K) and Urijah Faber ($150K) also had show purses that exceeded $100,000. Perhaps Romero is the biggest surprise out of the fighters earning six figures as he earned $125K plus another $25K fight bonus. This is a big step-up for Romero since his last fight against Lyoto Machida he only drew $33K and $33K at UFC Fight Night 70 this past June.
Here we go the biggest fight the mega event…now lets see the money…biggest money 500k? hahaha….whats new? all hype no cash….hahaha
The biggest UFC draws dont even make Chris Algieri money.
Canelo made twice the total payout! A cool $5M. Cotto made six time the total payout with $15M.
Jean Pascal and Lucian Bute both made around $2M each for their fight a while ago.
The UFC is all hype and no cash indeed.
Journeymen boxers make more than journeymen non-UFC MMA figthers and top boxers make way more than top UFC fighters.
Boxing wins both at the low-end and top-end.
With the lawsuit people would know where the money goes
McGregor most likely made at least 5m for this fight. Canelo co promotes his events as does Cotto.
Pacal and Bute make significantly less than UFC ppv stars.
Journeyman boxers make a fraction of what journeyman UFC fighters do.
Undercard UFC fighters make significantly more than banner promoted boxers do.
Banner promoted boxers can literally make as low as 1k on a major ppv, they aren’t insured like UFC fighters, often have to pay for travel/lodging and lose money to fight.
Boxers certainly make less below the headliners.
“The biggest UFC draws dont even make Chris Algieri money.”
Algieri makes less than Frankie Edgar.
10 fighters on this card made at least 90k. 8 made over 100k. How often does that happen in boxing?
If MMA had the Ali Act things would be different. It isn’t an Apples to Apples comparison because the MMA promotions are allowed to rape their biggest stars.
It helps cause they more undercard fighters, but if I’m the draw, I want all that money for me.
Pascal and Bute made more than almost every ufc fighter ever.
Only Brock, GSP, and maybe Silva made over $2M for a fight.
Pascal and Bute make less money than professional miniature golfers, ufc ppv stars are on another level.
$60m revenue in PPV sales
$10m revenue in ticket sales
$70m total revenue
$2.6m in salaries is 3% of the revenue. Let’s triple that for “locker room” bonuses and PPV bonuses and you get 9%. That is so beyond pathetic. How can you be the “NFL of MMA” and pay your fighters 9% of what you bring in.
and what is the criteria for these salaries? I have a HS buddy that fights for the UFC and he said that pay goes up based on the number of fights you have in the UFC. Why is Sage Northcutt getting 40k/40k in his second fight?
Combat sports- you didn’t account for a lot of things here.
First off, the ppv did not net 60m for the promotion. It is always in the 40-50% range. It all depends on how many buys this had, but let’s say it did 1.5m hypothetically(it may have done more, I’m not sure). That’s more like 45m in ppv revenue. So you are looking at 45m the ppv, 10m from the gate, some international tv, etc maybe another 2-3m. Let’s say this did 58m in revenue. You act like the event has no overhead costs outside of the fighter’s salaries. The UFC promotes and produces the event. That alone for this fight card probably cost around 10m. The event also gets taxed- that’s millions more.
If I had to guess, I would say the fighters take in about 20-25% of the gross, and closer to 40-50% of the net. That is a very fair deal seeing how if the fighters were to promote their fights on their own, they’d only make a fraction of what they did with the UFC. The banner is very important in mma.