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UFC 58 payscale
By Zach Arnold | March 13, 2006
By Zach Arnold
Let the debate begin. Of note, only three fighters ended up making 5-figures on the show. Also, one of the two men involved in the main event was reportedly paid under $10,000. The total estimated card salary? A little over $200,000. Good business? Or unfair treatment of fighters? Remember, fighters usually have agents and are not self-managed.
Also, potential management problems for David Loiseau?
Topics: All Topics, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It’s both. Unfortunatly, all too often, good business (a least in what will make you the greatest amount of short term profit) means paying your workers the least amount you can get away with. As long as UFC has no serious competition in the US, they will continue to pay crap wages like this.
http://www.mma-snark.com
[…] Check out what Dr. J and FightOpinion had to say about this. […]
Meltzer always posts the UFC salaries, yet I’ve yet to see anything with Pride. Of course that looks awfuly low, but we really need to see what Pride or K-1 gives their men so we can truly compare.
This got me thinking a bit. About 4 months or so ago, Paul Heyman (ECW fame) was at the end of his WWE contract, the rumor back at the time was he wasn’t going to re-up it and start his own promotion again, this time it was some radical MMA organization.
It wouldn’t take somebody who has smarts of how the fight game works to step in and give some serious competition to the UFC. If he had a huge financial backer, he could give literally 3x the amount of $$ that the UFC gives to fighters and steal TONS of their talent. Even if the first year they break even or lose money it wouldn’t matter if they are in it for the long haul (Just like TNA did). Of course with him, there would be massive prodcution values and market more of the personality aspect of the game, which gets people emotionally involved in fights (like hammerhouse vs chute box now).
It’s a shame he didn’t jump on that a while ago because now we have the IFL. They are selling tickets now I believe and we don’t know of any fights or have a great understanding of what it’s all about. Even if it’s on foxsports net, which is national cable television, I don’t see a lot of casual people tuning in, just the hardcore fans. I mean my god, I forget the #’s but Pride in the US has a very low buyrate when it comes to PPV numbers, but us hardcore fans can list 20-30 fighters from there no problem.
The only way fighters will get more money is if there is competition I guess, because the UFC has a monopoply and with the lawsuits flying here and there they want to keep it that way while they are laughing to the bank.
[Meltzer always posts the UFC salaries, yet I’ve yet to see anything with Pride. Of course that looks awfuly low, but we really need to see what Pride or K-1 gives their men so we can truly compare.]
Believe me, no one in PRIDE ever was paid under 5-figures for a fight in the company’s history. Ever.
The top guys make $300,000-$500,000 a fight on the gaijin side, $750,000+ on the Japanese side (for a Yoshida or Sakuraba).
Pride does pay much more but they also have much larger gate attendences. Pride events routinely have 60 – 80 thousand in attendance. We just broke a new North American record of 18,000+ the other night, so that has some to do with the pay discrepancy. It doesn’t excuse it at all; the UFC does need to pay their fighters better, without question.
60-80K is far to high for your average PRIDE show, when Saitama only seats 37 or 38K at best. The New Years Eve Show in ’02 at Tokyo National Stadium did over 60K, but I don’t think there has been any other show thats come close to that in Japan. Some, at the Tokyo Dome have topped 50K, but not 60.
In the history of PRIDE, there are more than 10 events did over 40k. The record was 2003 PRIDE GP Finals which drew 65k in Tokyo Dome.
[The top guys make $300,000-$500,000 a fight on the gaijin side, $750,000+ on the Japanese side (for a Yoshida or Sakuraba). ]
Who are those top guys, besides Fedor, Hunt and Silva and maybe Nog and Mirko? Pride signs the top guys for 12-15 fight deals, so a million dollar contract there doesn’t always mean more than $250,000 per fight, which is what the top guys make in the US (Tito, Randy, Chuck and the Shamrocks).
And what about the low-mid card and the Bushido guys, like Yves for example, I find it hard to believe he went back to $8,000 (*2 for the win) if he was making much more than that in Japan. Someone needs to come up with real numbers from Pride, a lot of people have some serious misconceptions about “Japan money”.
Considering that I’ve dealt with people who negotiated deals with PRIDE in the past, I would think I would have *some* qualification to talk about salaries. But it’s OK. 🙂
In the Bushido series, the fighters are working for less than the normal PRIDE shows. However, less does not mean lower than 5-figures for most of the fighters. In addition, we’re referring to the Bushido series – which in the eyes of DSE and the fans, is considered the B-level shows (while DEEP and Real Rhythm are the C-level shows).
Bushido is the B show but they sure are good–and a hell of a value for their low ppv cost.
I look forward to the day when North American fighters can make a living without having to scrounge up sponsors or work the graveyard shift at McDonalds to pay the rent. Competition is good for everyone except the UFC. Some of these guys could qualify for welfare on what their UFC contracts pay.
What is the avg. pay scale for then ufc fighters? We check out all the fights, and would like to know what they make?, skip