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Post-Floyd Mayweather, Conor McGregor’s marriage with UFC demands a piece of ownership

By Zach Arnold | August 26, 2017

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Dana White was non-committal about whether or not WME-IMG would be open to giving Conor McGregor a piece of UFC in order to keep him active long-term. After Saturday night’s fight with Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas, it is blatantly clear that Conor McGregor will continue fighting in both boxing and MMA. The question is what price it will cost the new UFC ownership to keep the gravy train going.

There is a ready-made fight on the table with Conor McGregor vs. Paulie Malignaggi after their training camp fallout. There are plenty of UFC fights on the table for McGregor at big arenas. UFC has Conor McGregor under contract. They made a lot of money going along with the Floyd Mayweather charade. With as much debt financing as WME-IMG is currently exposed to with their purchase of UFC, they are all-in with homerun mega fights.

Randy Couture commented that Conor McGregor’s venture in boxing highlight to the public the financial issues facing top MMA fighters. Once the general public saw the kind of money that Conor McGregor could make in sponsorships and PPV outside the UFC financial model umbrella, Couture believes it will change the way people look at MMA fighters and how MMA fighters conduct themselves. More fighters will try their hand at boxing. The MMA promoters will essentially become hybrid promoters. As long as the Ali Act is not going to get amended any time soon, the MMA promoters are free to do whatever the hell they want.

The drama before the Floyd Mayweather/Conor McGregor fight involved cable, satellite, and internet PPV providers crashing due to the high volume of last-minute PPV buys. Showtime lost money at the last minute because they could only provide a standard definition feed for some providers.

To top everything off, the level of volume at the sportsbooks for the Mayweather/McGregor fight matched or surpassed the Super Bowl. There were a series of 7-figure bets. The casinos won big. As long as the casinos are winning big, Conor McGregor’s value remains sky high.

If the UFC wants to continue their marriage with Conor McGregor, they’re going to have to sweeten the pot. Since Lorenzo Fertitta is no longer the owner, Dana White sounds open to giving Conor McGregor someone else’s money. McGregor is a fabulous self-promoter. He’s a great promoter, period. WME-IMG needs him. After the self-destruction (again) of Jon Jones, UFC needs Conor McGregor more than ever.

Topics: Boxing, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

5 Responses to “Post-Floyd Mayweather, Conor McGregor’s marriage with UFC demands a piece of ownership”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    In WME’s quest to make money in the short term, they just opened themselves up to much bigger paydays for McGregor in the future.

    They were stupid to let McGregor box, and got very lucky that he didn’t embarrass himself.

    Here is a prediction…. McGregor will lose his next MMA fight.

  2. Tradition Rules says:

    I can understand why McGregor would like to “get a piece of the action”,….but he just made something rediculous, like $105 million,…. so he should just shut up and defend his Lightweight Title.

    He wasn’t to yak it it up while building up his next fight? Fine. Time to back it up. He never defended the Featherweight title he won & and has yest to defend his Lightweight title.

    I’m glad this hype show is over. I had so many people who were shocked I didn’t give a rat’s ass about this fight,….for many reasons: the over the top hype, the fact that Mayweather has assaulted women on multiple occasions (in any other sport, he’d be done), and he continues to get paid rediculous amounts of money, flauts his wealth, etc…..

    And I had seen a posting that on the undercard, before the Main Event, there was something like, less than 1000 in the seats,…just makes me personally, even more of an MMA fan and less of a fan of boxing.

  3. Diaz's packed bowl says:

    The fight was essentially an enjoyable exhibition of boxing by the greatest living boxer against an Irish drunkenclown with a golden ticket. Embarrassing to watch him get drunk at the post fight, just staggering around an empty stage with his bottle of whiskey.
    Connor’s persona is great but he’s not a great fighter. I think the booze and partying are the cause of his “patches of fatigue”. He had the easiest way to both titles through two shot fighters, who both used the stupidest strategy possible, in Aldo and Alvarez. A trilogy with Diaz is his best bet. He wont win against a Khabib or Fergusen or healthy Diaz for that matter, but Diaz will bring in the most cash imo.
    Now we can get back to putting the screws to JJ.

  4. 45 Huddle says:

    The UFC are scum. Many people purchased the PPV through UFC.tv and had major issues streaming it. I had a feeling this would happen, which is why I went to my local theater instead.

    Instead of just giving people their money back who demand it, they are trying to pass the blame off to another company. If the UFC collected the money, they should be the ones to pay it back and then they can sue any other companies who are responsible for the problem.

    I have commented on here in the past that I purchased a UFC PPV (the one Bisping won the belt). I fell asleep at the beginning of the event but knew I had 24 hours to watch it. When I woke up in the morning, my 24 hour purchase was blacked out so I couldn’t see it.

    The UFC refused to give me back my money. I contacted my credit card company to refuse the charge…. and the UFC actively disputed this as well. Sadly, I was in the middle of purchasing and selling a house as the same time and just didn’t have enough time or energy to fight it further. But I had screen shots of how they were going against their own policies.

    I have probably purchased between 50 to 100 MMA PPV’s before this time. I have purchased maybe 4 since. I’m a pretty honest consumer. The UFC are just scum when it comes to their online PPV streaming.

    And guess what…. There is a class action lawsuit already out there against Showtime for this streaming issue. It won’t be long until the UFC is included in it.

  5. King Famous says:

    I feel like anyone who has had any amateur boxing and martial arts training knew what was going to happen in this fight. But there are many more people who have only had one or the other, and still many many more that have never had either.
    The uneducated casual person bought nearly all the hype, media sound bites and build up for the fight. That made it more fun for me. At the end of the day it was a great spectacle. You can’t call it an exhibition because anyone that gets into the ring in a professional fight is facing real consequences of the engagement. The fight was fun, and great for prize fighters everywhere. Lets see if anything indeed changes when it comes to fighter salary, or the future of combat sports.

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