Dana White: Dan Henderson Asking For “Obscene” Money, Negotiations are “Done” (video)
Posted by Kris Karkoski on Oct 21, 2009 at 12:00 am ET22 Comments
Tags: Dan Henderson, Dana White
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“An obscene amount of money.” Interesting, I’m sure a good bit of that is spin, but I know that Hendo has been on tour with the Tapout crew, and has been hunting the last few days, so obviously he’s not been sitting across the table discussing business with Dana. I think his tour has just wrapped up, and so has his hunting trip, I hope they get things sorted out soon.
I’m guessing if there is any truth to the whole “obscene amount of money” issue, its tied directly to the whole “promised 185 title shot that Dana later handed to Vitor Belfort” issue…
Or it could be tied directly to the seven figure signing bonus issue.
I’m thinking that 7 figure signing bonus ask would have been a lot lower if Vitor Belfort wasn’t fighting Hendo’s [or Marquardt's] fight with Silva at 108…
See you later Hendo
I can’t blame the guy for wanting more money and I can’t blame Dana for running his business as he sees fit.
The UFC is in a great spot. They have the long term credibility to stay around and dont need to “bribe” fighters to stay with them. The fighters might not get mega bucks but they make enough to live on.
Im sure people will boo me for that, but the bottom line is MMA is still in its infnacy. Right now and for the next 5 years at least, the organizations need to keep the lions share of the profits. Once the sport becomes more mainstream, the players will make more money.
In their infancies, the NBA, MLB, and the NFL payed its players very low wadges. There are many stories of players working in grocery stores and whatnot to earn a living because sports didn’t pay the bills. As the organizations grew though, it made more sense to pay more for top talent.
Comparatively, even top NHL players barely make more than some of the top earning fighters in the UFC. If you figure Lesnar makes ~3mil per fight, and if he were to fight three times a year, he is nearing Alexander Ovechkin’s yearly pay. The pay that NFl players earned 40 years ago is an embarrassment when you look at what they make today, not to mention, the NFLPA has done a p!ss poor job taking care of retirees, even from the past decade. The UFC and MMA are still in their infancy, and granted the retirees haven’t exactly been taking great care of, but from what I understand Hughes, and Franklin recently signed “retirement package” contracts, and I think over time we will see more of that.
Granted, I do recognize that league minimums for the NHL are still far better than for the UFC.
Lesnar is an oddity to the sport though. He is partially a marketing ploy in an attempt to bring some “fake” fight watchers over to the real thing.
The UFC is moving in the right direction though. I see a burgeoning “minor league” which will lead to better contracts for “big league” fighters” over time. The NFLPA will gain additional leverage with more nationwide organizations and in the long run, it will end up with pay and benefits like other sports.
One thing that seperates the UFC from the other sports I mention though is the “team”. Its a sport that thrives on the individual, so it wont ever really be comparable to the NFL, NHL, or any team based sport. I just hope it doesnt go the way of boxing. That would be a tragedy. I wonder how tennis is run, its somewhat comparable I think?
Lesnar is somewhat of an oddity in his pay structure, but he is not the only one that makes those kind of numbers, Couture, Liddell, and a few others are comparable.
Tennis I would say, now that you mention it, is likely the closest structure of pay to what happens in MMA (possibly golf as well). The only thing though, and admittedly I don’t know much about either sport’s pay structure, I think that Tennis and Golf have set purses for winning tournaments, regardless of who you are. If Tiger wins the masters, or if Bubba pulls out a miracle and wins it, I think they both get the same purse, Tiger just has a multi-million dollar Nike contract to pay his bills, where Bubba does not.
But Tiger does have an “appearance fee” to grace a tournament with his presence. I don’t know if Federer does too, but I would be shocked if he didn’t.
http://www.golftoday.co.uk/news/yeartodate/news02/woods21.html
http://www.thegolfchannel.com/tour-insider/notes-tiger-woods-addresses-appearance-fee-controversy-28884/
So, to make a comparable system, the UFC would need something like (and let’s go with where on the card you are)…
Headline fights: 150K to winner
Main card fights: 75K to winner
Prelim card fights: 30K to winner
And each fighter negotiates his own appearance fee.
Golf and Tennis can be bracketed, which makes a purse more feasable. The UFC could do that, but I think I prefer the match making they have now. For the most part (sure there are some exceptions) I think they make great matchups.
I am very often disappointed with sports that use brackets to eliminate players/teams. In fact, it maximizes the worst matchups possible. I don’t want to see Anderson Silva anhilate the #16 guy (someone like Kendall Grove) ever. If they are going that route, I would rather it be gladitorial and thow in a tiger or something.
Ill take the tiger in the 1st by rear naked throat rip.
Dbiz, that payscale makes a lot of sense, IMO. The only concern is the uberstacked events that have a main event worthy fight on the regular main card, and therefore maincard worthy fights on the undercard. Along those same lines, I think that you have to add a tier for the newly created “Spike TV Prelims.”
Dig, I certainly don’t want to see #1 fighters taking on #16s, but that would assume a tournament style format, which we know the UFC doesn’t have. A ranking system could be used (though it would have to be a subjective one) to help determine pay, and help determine number one contenders, but not using it the same way as Tennis does where you have a tournament.
The problems with a ranking system is that #1 it makes it glaringly obvious when a fighter hasn’t earned his title shot and gets one (Thales Leites, Shogun), but it could also delay title defenses (see previous two examples).
I’m digging the brain-storming goin on here…i like the pay system dbiz layed out…makes the most sense to me
Another option would be how Chess is scored. Each contestant has a ranking score and start at 1000.
If you are at 1000 and you beat someone else at 1000, you get 50 points. It also adjusts so if someone with a 2000 score beats someone with a 1000 score, they get 1 point and the loser loses only 1 point. If the 1000 point guy wins, he gets like 150 points and the 2000 guy loses 150 points.
If they used this only for pay (because it would consider past performance and loyalty to the organization), they could set up a pay scale. They could also bring in a big name at a specific rating (ie Fedor comes in at 2200 or whatever).
2300-2500 = 1 mil/fight
2100-2300 = 750k
1900-2100 = 500k
or whatever….
These are all really interesting ideas for a pay scale. Of course we know they’ll never happen because fighters will argue about theirs or their opponents rating or whatever and it will just revert back to whatever the UFC wants to pay you. Unless of course athletic commissions actually make a mandated pay scale (which would have to be profit percentage based to take smaller organizations into consideration) but I don’t think they could legally mandate anything related with pay but IDK I’m pretty dumb when it comes to $ stuff as well as basically everything else.
I don’t want to see the AC’s regulate pay for a number of reasons. 1. Government rarely thinks about the little guy, they would make a minimum, with the UFC in mind, and the law of unintended consequences would put the little guys out of business. 2. It’s not the place of government to tell a business what it can and cannot pay their employees, Constitutionally speaking (including current minimum wage laws, IMO).
Dana White is a totally unprofessional and he treats his fighters like crap. I think UFC fighters are underpaid for the most part and Dana is manipulating the sport into the ground. Unfortunately the UFC is the only league out there right now. If I were Hendo, Tito, Randy, Huerta, etc. I would have kicked Dana’s ass the way he handled negotiations and salaries. Even Vince McMahon treats his talent better…at least in the public eye. I also think Dana scrwed Matt Hammil. Hammil kicked Bisbing’s ass and Dana rigged the fight. For having a strong fan base…Hammil is underpaid too. Talk about mismanaging a talented fighters career.
Really?
“Dana rigged the fight?”
Guys bagging 6 figures annually are “underpaid”?
Is that SERIOUSLY the type of sh!t you want appearing under your name?!
While I agree that some UFC legend probably should throw Dana a beating for his smart-mouth, and yeah sometimes he treats SOME fighters like crap, it bears mentioning AGAIN that the reason this site [formerly ufcdaily] exists and enjoys the popularity it does, which mirrors our sport’s, is because of Dana White, who has redefined what “professionalism” means in a sport wherein 2 guys agree to be locked in a cage and fight until someone taps, naps, or snaps.
Mentioning Dana White in the same sentence with a carnival barker like Vince MacMahon is beyond ridiculous.
And if you want to try and gain some traction and cred here at the frenZy, you seriously need to think things thru before posting them…
Meanwhile, Dana White was on Nightline tonight, and they were talking about MBA schools trying to get him to guest lecture.
I still think Hendo will re-sign with the UFC. So im not going to dive into this subject.
However I would like to know how much “obscene” is in Dana White’s book.
Seven figure signing bonus is one thing I’ve heard.