Trouble in Paradise: Are the UFC Natives Getting Restless?
The honeymoon may be ending for the UFC and its top fighters. Dave Meltzer reported this week on two separate situations that suggest emerging tensions between Zuffa and its top stars. The first, touched on earlier this week, is the reliability of the pay-per-view estimates the company gives its top fighters. The second is the growing disparity in guaranteed pay between the home grown stars who the brand was built on and the new Pride signings.Pay-per-view numbers are very important to the top guys since many of them have contracts that include bonuses based on the number of buys. The highest number anyone has been told for the Jackson-Liddell II pay-per-view is 625,000 which conflicts with Dana White’s public statement the weekend of the show that they were expecting around one million buys. At the time the statement was made it was obviously a very early estimate, however, the number was reportedly confirmed by others in the company following the show.
Zuffa guards its pay-per-view numbers very tightly. While numbers were readily available last year they were not made available by the company, but inevitably leaked because of the phenomenal growth they showed. This year Zuffa has clamped down even tighter on the release of numbers. As a result there is a growing sense of secrecy which naturally leads to distrust. This may be one of the reasons that the company is reportedly moving away from contractual bonuses based on pay-per-view buys.
The other issue is the escalating guaranteed deals that the company has given several of the Pride fighters. Mirko Cro Cop’s deal was the first to raise eyebrows with its massive downside guarantee (more than $350,000 per fight). The latest eye opener is the reported $2 million per fight and seven figure bonus offered to Fedor Emelianeko (which is probably a little high, but not by much according to Meltzer). The company’s homegrown stars have never gotten anything close to that in guaranteed money, however, they are well compensated through bonus laden contracts.
Both issues may end up moot points. It seems as if Zuffa is in the process of transitioning away from bonus laden contracts of the type Couture, Liddell, and Ortiz currently fight under and towards the higher downside guarantees that recent acquisitions have received. If this is the case, both these issues will resolve themselves as the company’s top names roll over into new contracts. However, it is a situation that warrants close monitoring by the company and those that follow it since escalating fighter costs were specifically cited by S&P’s recent report as a key threat to the company’s profitability.
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maybe shows on fight card for 78?
Zuffa is run like a mafia family; don’t disrespect the family, and don’t act subversive, cause Zuffa will trunk your ass if they so please.
I hope the UFC doesn’t get more greedy than it already is. It would be great to see all the UFC fighters receive an increase in pay.
What I wonder is, why don’t they have a prize purse for the fight. Winner gets a bigger chunk of it, loser gets the smaller chunk. 75/25 or 66/33, or 80/20, or whatever. But I see no reason for someone like Chuck Liddell, or any other fighter, to get paid $500,000 to lose a fight, when the guy that beat him doesn’t even get a tenth of that. Yeah, yeah, these guys got the contracts that they did, and agreed to them and their terms, etc, etc. I’m just saying that in the end it just doesn’t seem fair for the guy that wins the fight to get paid less, especially when it is such a huge amount less. Yeah, Chuck’s a big name, and guarantees a certain amount of income for the UFC that night. But if he can’t beat the guy, why should he be compensated as though he did? For a fight like that, why doesn’t the UFC make the fight purse $500,000 or whatever, and then the winner gets $400,000 and the loser gets $100,000, for example. They’re both risking the same things. With Chuck’s reputation and Jardine’s reputation, it could have been argued that Jardine was risking more, but whatever. Make the fight worthwhile to both fighters, but give them a real incentive to win.
You win the fight, you get paid more than the guy you beat.
[...] October 10, 2007 may be remembered as a historic day in the business of mixed martial-arts. Randy Couture has resigned from the UFC in a move that could prove to have lasting and far reaching effects. Couture’s resignation seems to be the first fruit of the growing tension between the UFC’s management and it’s top fighters that we reported on last week. [...]
The real issue is not who gets paid more, winner or loser, but why the purses are sooooo low. In boxing a big name (Tyson) always gets paid more to win or lose, than a rival with no name recognition.
The real issue is how does the UFC pull down $20-$30M a card and only payout their fighters less than a million. I can tell you that is where boxing is different. The fighters get paid a ton more for less. I understand UFC doesn’t have the mainstream sponsors yet, but the pay discrepancy doesn’t make sense.
UFC has been around 1/10th the time of boxing. give them time and you will see them get paid more money. UFC also doesn’t want to get turned into boxing style purses, b/c you end up having 2 guys poke at each other for 3 rounds and bring home a cool $1 million for it. I think they get paid fairly as of right now. I also agree with the 75/25 statement made earlier. this give you way more to fight for.