« Josh Koscheck on GSP playing it safe: “That’s kind of bad, he’s going to lose a lot of fans like that” and “he has no punching power” | Home | UFC fighter Jeremy Stephens has a homophobic message for Floyd Mayweather; Update: TUF contestant Jamie Yager says someone used fake Twitter account to make homophobic slurs to Tito Ortiz »
Talk Radio: What financial responsibility does Zuffa have to take care of former stars who helped build the company?
By Zach Arnold | June 3, 2010
From Sherdog radio yesterday, the background to set this up is simple. Jens Pulver still wants to fight, Zuffa doesn’t want him to, so instead of giving him a commentating job he’s gone. Pulver keeps saying he wants to fight despite retirement proclamations several times repeated on house microphones.
The discussion here takes a turn from Pulver to Stephan Bonnar, who looks incredibly awkward on MMA Live and TV appearances. It transitions into why Bonnar still has a job while other veterans who helped Zuffa out may not be getting paid gigs like Bonnar is.
LOTFI SARIAHMED: “There isn’t an obligation. [The UFC is] under no obligation to give each one of their former stars a nice landing spot. I mean, they want to, sure it’d be nice, but they’re under no obligation to do it.”
TJ DE SANTIS: “If you’re going to do it for one guy and not the other, you’re going to have discussion from the media, from the fans of why one person gets the treatment and another one doesn’t. You know, I mean… I know what Stephan Bonnar has done for Mixed Martial Arts, I know Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin have done with their fight but really, I mean…”
LOTFI SARIAHMED: “Is that a fair comparison to make, though?”
TJ DE SANTIS: “Yeah, it is the comparison to make because Stephan Bonnar, athletically, has no place in the UFC right now. No place whatsoever.”
LOTFI SARIAHMED: “No, in other words though, I don’t think Bonnar has gotten any more than maybe a couple gigs, I mean a couple spots. I think (Kenny) Florian’s the guy who has been front and center a bunch more times compared to anybody else I think because of his success before on a couple of UFC PPVs, because of what he does on MMA Live, they just kind of want to go with what works.”
JACK ENCARNACAO: “Yeah, the man has a communications degree, you know, he’s got the background. He can point to studies you know as opposed to just you know being a decent sound bite. I mean Stephan Bonnar got assigned to the Dana White look-alike contest this past Saturday, I mean you know it’s not like they’re going to make him the next Mike Goldberg.”
TJ DE SANTIS: “That’s true, but I’m just saying, you know, I don’t know. I just think there are better guys for that, you know, here have some free money because we like you job than Stephan Bonnar.”
JACK ENCARNACAO: “To Lotfi’s point, totally correct. Of course you know they’re not obligated although it would be nice to create a landing pad, but around certain fighters that conversation develops. You know if you didn’t want to give the impression that was something you’re interested in, you don’t give Jens Pulver a chance to do commentary or you don’t bring it up in a lot of interviews you know that, look his days are over as a fighter but we’d love to keep him around. That’s the thing. With particular fighters like Jens Pulver, that was the discussion. That was a direction that was being proposed by the promotion. It wasn’t one that being imposed on the promotion by fans or media. It was one the promotion was saying they were prepared to do. Something they were prepared, an accommodation they were prepared to make and then when it just doesn’t happen as soon as they announce that it would, there’s more to it. Period.”
TJ DE SANTIS: “You’re right, Jack, I think maybe there’s more to this story and we’ll see what happens with Jens going forward but as now he did get his walking papers from the WEC, which I mean… in a way, not that shocking. Sort of shocked that he’s not in the booth, right away.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 48 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Short Answer: Zero Responsibility
Long Answer: It’s not there problem. These guys still have 20 years until the typical retirement age. They can do something else if they want. The UFC, Strikeforce, DREAM, etc…. They should pay a fair wage for the fights. That’s their only responsibility. I guess that and cover any injuries that occurred during their fights.
Griffin & Bonnar are unique cases that will never be repeated so are nit a good example.
Heck, some teams use certain former players as coaches or as scouts. And the media doesn’t care. Those teams have a right to use anybody they want. So this is a complete non-issue.
Why not offer Jens a job at one the future UFC gyms? Jens gets some stability and members get a chance to train with a former UFC champion.
The UFC will do nothing and everyone knows it. This in spite of demanding fighters’ likeness rights in exchange for “money for the rest of their lives” or whatever excuse it was they used. 20 years from now there will be a bunch of crippled and/or dead MMA fighters with people acting surprised that it happened when so many were college educated. Not everyone is going to be able to run camps or promote or announce. For those that don’t, its gonna be ugly.
And you know this how?
The Fertittas running an MMA Charity: Please. Not gonna happen. As for fighters post career: If you’re 40 years old and you’ve been a professional fighter for the last 15 years, how easy do you think it is to transition back to civilian life? Look at boxing, pro wrestling, the NFL, whatever. Pro athletes go broke more often than not, and given how little MMA fighter make compared to most professional sports at the top level, you can expect the issues to be magnified. Only so many guys can be trainers. Much fewer guys can promote shows. Almost no one can announce in the current enviroment.
The MMA organization is still not responsible to keep them afloat for the rest of their lives.
Perhaps offer them classes on transitioning. But that’s about as far as they should go.
If these fighters can’t make the transition after fighting, then it us likely they wouldn’t have been able to do it when they were younger either. They should just be greatful they had a few good years instead of none.
Education is the best way. Educate the fighters when they retire offer those services.
Who would take them up immediately after being cut? Fighters who leave the UFC don’t retire, they fight for shoddy club shows because its a lot easier than getting a real job and having to learn a whole new set of life skills.
They’d have to be willing to do it for guys willing to retire on the UFC’s schedule (when cut), and that won’t happen. Its not realistic. Zuffa setting up some sort of fighter charity for them after their careers as fighters are over is the most hilarious thing I’ve ever heard suggested being real. Never going to happen.
(worth noting that the unionized stick and ball sports offer stipends to old players as well as health insurance.)
Like I said you know this how? I know that Florian, Bonnar, Griffin, Chuck, Couture, have all been offered jobs once they’re done fighting.
“I know that Florian, Bonnar, Griffin, Chuck, Couture, have all been offered jobs once they’re done fighting.”
So…less than 1% of their fighters. And all of these guys are “big names” that have made a boatload of money by mma standards.
Florian and Griffin have been offered a job when they’re done fighting? They won’t be done for 10 years. Let’s revisit those job offers when they’re actually close to retirement. How long will Bonner be on the payroll MCing wet T-Shirt contests? Do you really think they’re gonna keep paying him for another 40 years?
Chuck thought so highly of the job offer he’s back fighting again in spite of Dana White talking trash about that prospect for nearly a calendar year. Why? He’d want out of his contract to fight for someone else and make money. Same with Couture, who resigned for a big money contract to run him through the end of his career rather than take a job behind the desk. Matt Hughes is in the same position as Randy. Instead, those guys will take beatings in training and in the ring. Who knows what they’ll be like when they’re finally done?
You have zero examples of guys who took the offer of retirement. Zero. None. On the other hand, have they just unceremoniously cut guys? Yeah. They did with Pulver. They did with Coleman (even said that they were afraid he’d get killed!). They did with Trigg. They’ll do it one day to a whole bunch of current or former headliners too.
Who here is going to care when, a year or two down the line, Diego Sanchez ends up getting iced for 8 or 10 months till his contract is up for its final fight and ends up on the free agent market instead? We’ll all just laugh about him having spent all his money or being greedy like people already do re: Ken Shamrock or Kevin Randleman.
Alan,
I still don’t see where the justification is to give guys who are basically independent contractors a career or money afterwards.
There isn’t any.
I didn’t say there was “justification”. The UFC can do whatever it wants. It isn’t legally obligated to do anything, as the NFL is due to the contracts they’ve signed with the Player’s Union. From the point of moral obligation to society, I think it would be wise to try and offer some services (rehab, medical insurance, education) to former fighters. It wouldn’t break their banks and yet would give them a more positive image with advertisers and the public and would prevent fighters from becoming destitute. But I don’t expect anything like that.
Medical Insurance for past employees have crippled other companies. So to say it wouldn’t break the bank is understating it.
They don’t have to offer it to every fighter: Offer it to fighters with a minimum of 5 fights or whom have headlined a card or whatever criteria they wish to use as evidence of “tenure” prior to an offer of medical insurance. Offer high co-pay plans for fighters with less experience. You can do it without bankrupting your company pretty easily, especially when the number of employees and cost of labor is as low as it is for the UFC versus the revenue they generate.
Benefits cannot be used like that. There are a lot of laws set up to prevent discrimination. So for them to just say 5 fights sounds nice but wouldn’t work in the real world.
Really? What laws prevent a company from offering different levels of benefits to more highly compensated workers? Oh, there aren’t any.
UFC is not going to offer medical insurance (outside of fight-based coverage) to past and current fighters. It would give ammunition to someone who dares to try to bust them up in court over the concept of treating fighters like independent contractors. If you start giving fighters insurance and other perks, all of a sudden they would be opening themselves up to some legal issues — and even on the friendliest of home court turf in Las Vegas, I don’t see them taking any chances.
Zach Arnold beat me to it. HCE’s…. The key letter in that is E…. For Employee. You don’t give benefits to Independent Contractors. It just isn’t done in any industry that I’m aware of. Maybe with a union in place, but that changes the rules and the laws they are under.
More then any other sport…. Fighters should be treated like Independent Contractors. They show up on the job for like 10 days a year maximum. It’s different then a baseball player who spends 9 months with a team.
So for them to offer retirement benefits…. They would either have to call them employees or at least grey that line way too much.
Plus, even on a moral aspect, I don’t think it’s their issue. Some fighters are dumb. You can hand hold then through life…. And they will still have problems….
There’s a million ways they can get around it. Setting up a fund for down on luck fighters to get cheaper health insurance as a disconnected and independent charity service funded by Zuffa would be easy to do and would circumvent discussion of independent contracting. They could also manage to make it part of contractual negotiations if they wanted, and would likely be able to get away with it then too.
They can if they want to. They don’t. So a bunch of guys making diddly squat as athletes will be forced to enter the workforce with no experience and/or skills at the conclusion of their careers, and probably not much money either since they’re stingy. Comedy in the form of tragedy will ensue. No one here will care and will instead blame the fighters who gave their health for the sport. That’s the conclusion. Same as it ever was.
It could be set up as a charity and done as a tax write off. The NFL and other ball sports have done it for years and survived. Right now they’re in there with the WWE as “independent contract” herders. So if that’s where they’d like to stay at in respectability and wait for Ken Shamrock to turn into Billy Graham pawning his Hall of Fame plaque to pay for medical bills, then go for it.
Hell, the porn industry set up a few charities to help out down on their luck performers with medical bills, mental health and drug rehabs. So is the UFC going to think less of their past stars than freakin’ porn studios?
I think you stand a better chance if you are a former boxer as opposed to being a former UFC fighter…. former UK boxing great Wayne McCullough has been working with the UFC UK front office….. meanwhile Ian Freeman is wondering around Eastern Europe ring announcing some bootleg M-1 cards in front of about 20 guys named Boris…
I get his group emails every so often, and he is always trying some new thing. Selling his own “comedy” DVDs, selling puppies, selling MMA lessons… I hope the guy is alright.
You’d be shocked by how many people attend some of those European M-1 cards.
Employers never “take care” of employees unless they feel they must, usually in order to compete for talent against competitors. In a near-monopoly situation like the one at hand, Zuffa is shielded from this kind of pressure.
Beyond market forces, there are two other ways for employees to be “taken care of” by the employers who profit off them – legislation or bargaining.
Lawmakers have the power to FORCE employers to treat their employees according to certain standards, but this requires political will, which can only be generated by education campaigns, PR strategies to build popular support, and organized pressure on key decision-makers. Fans of the sport who care about fighters, as well as journalists and bloggers, can play a positive role here, both as citizens and as consumers of the product.
The ultimate power of employees, however, is to band together and bargain collectively, rather than as weak individuals. They then have the power to FORCE employers to “take care” of them and we won’t need to speculate about the altruism and charitable intent of Zuffa. Organizing into a union also provides the best vehicle to push for legislative reforms that will entrench fighters rights’ in the law books.
Most people feel there’s no hope of organizing a fighters’ union, for diverse reasons. I don’t agree, but if those people are correct, then we will simply never see fighters get “taken care of” by promotions, especially under monopoly (or near-monopoly) conditions. Fighters will continue to be exploited, damaged, and discarded for our entertainment, and for the profit of Zuffa or whoever takes its place.
LOL at ‘near monopoly’
The only way the UFC has anything approaching a monopoly is if you define their business so narrowly that you eliminate all other competitors. Good luck trying to portray Zuffa as having a monopoly when an upstart company like Strikeforce can match their best attendance numbers, surpass their highest viewership numbers, and snag the biggest free agent in the history of the sport from under their noses.
Microsoft was found to have a monopoly, yet there are tons of other successful computer operating system and software companies. I think you’re far from having the silver bullet there.
You’re off here Gaijin. Microsoft didn’t get in trouble for monopolizing the operating systems of computers. Microsoft got in trouble for bundling their browser with the OS, and unfairly cornering the browser market in doing so.
The UFC with regards to MMA is in the same boat as Microsoft with regards to their OS. Both have the vast majority of the marketshares, and it’ll be nearly impossible to dislodge them them from the top, but they’re not doing anything wrong and aren’t actually monopolies.
Ahhh…serves me for talking out my ass there!
I do agree that the UFC’s done nothing wrong…and if anyone ever tried to call them a monopoly they’d have a hell of at time doing it…I was just(wrongly) trying to point out that monopoly didn’t mean there were no competitors.
I was careful to qualify Zuffa as having a “near” monopoly on the market. Way to focus on that and miss the point of my comment…
If you want long-term income, don’t be a professional athlete. Go to college and become an engineer or doctor. Fighters chose their profession (emphasis on chose) and ultimately they’re the ones responsible for the pros and cons regarding that decision. The UFC has no moral or legal obligation to them outside of what they offer in the contracts.
This is a reason a Fighter’s Union is needed.
Are they obligated? No. Will they help out a few key guys? Certainly. But will they ever get to the point where every fighter who fights X amount of fights gets a pension? Definitely not. Even if they did, since they’re only paying the average fighter under 20 grand a fight, how much would they even get a month? $200 if they ever made it out of the prelims?
The thing is, for the sport’s PR they need to make sure these guys aren’t fighting longer than they need to. Even if its just throwing some guys some money to go back to school and writing it off on taxes it needs to happen. The sport is too young to have a Muhammad Ali or Jerry Quarry, and right now Sakuraba comes the closest to that. But what are they going to do with press relations when say a Ken Shamrock or a Jens Pulver who have been knocked out cold a dozen times turn up in a news story with severe dementia in 10 years when the media wants to do another concussions story? Boxing has been able for years to wash their hands of brain damaged fighters since the stars were paid so well and the NFL takes cares of every player no matter how short term they stayed in the league. But what retort would the UFC have beyond “Oh, well, it was their decision to fight.” I’m not trying to be hyperbolic with “THIS WILL KILL THE SPORT IN 2020~!” But it’s something they should think about.
Everyone talks about the sport’s PR, but that never becomes an issue. Every couple of months they’ll talk about how this or that will give the sport a black eye, but no major news ever picks up on it.
If and when it becomes an issue, the UFC can easily make a big hoopla about it and change things up, and they’ll probably end up looking better than than they would if they took care of it when nobody cared.
You might say in some humanitarian sense that it’s better if they fix it now than wait until it becomes a mainstream issue, and if so I’d like to point out my above comment where I feel they have nothing to fix.
Boxing hasn’t washed their hands of it. Its a major point of contention that it ruins as many people as it does.
I don’t get it. You guys don’t have any financial stake in Zuffa, you’re watching UFC because you supposedly enjoy their athletes. So why be more concerned with how much money Dana can get in his quarterly bonus if they don’t offer the fighters suffering brain damage for your entertainment help when they’re tossed aside for the next generation of fighters? This “business first, fighters an afterthought” mentality from half of the posters on this site makes absolutely no sense. Especially when the ideas being suggested are tax write offs this billion dollar company won’t even notice.
If you’re going to be cynical and say “under law they’re not obligated to do anything but pay them to perform so why even get worked up over it”, that’s one thing. But to cheerlead them on because it’s better for THE BIZ~! is ridiculous. There’s no other sport in the world where fans care more about owners and commissioners more than the athletes like with UFC fanboys.
It isn’t rocket science, Mark. The reason we get to see so damn many good fighters and great fights now is because Zuffa has been aggressive and cutthroat in growing their business from the start. Aggressive expansion leads to growth in new areas and an expansion of the talent pool. Aggressive marketing leads to stronger interest in MMA and an expansion in the talent pool. Aggressive growth leads to progressively higher paychecks and . . . you get the idea.
Good biz leads to good fights. It isn’t a roundabout link, its straight-line.
While you may argue that “seeing money go into Dana’s pockets” doesn’t benefit the sport, nobody here is actively arguing that they want more money in Dana’s pocket. They’re arguing for the health and growth of the UFC, and protection against legal and business pitfalls.
Affliction and WEF put on plenty of good fights. They had zero business sense. PRIDE did too and they were nothing but a front for dirty money. The UFC meanwhile puts on plenty of lousy fights. I guess they’re good because they make money? LOL.
Zuffa doing something humanitarian for former fighters would have no effect on their ability to book excellent cards and fights. There’s no connection of any sort there.
Are they still putting on good fights, Alan? If every organization showed the shitty business sense of the organizations you mentioned, MMA would have gone to hell in a handbasket. Thank god for promotions and fans that can see beyond the tips of their noses.
I agree with you that the UFC should do something in terms of helping fighters transition to a successful career after fighting. I’m just explaining to Mark why people care about the business side, and not only the quality of the fights.
Good business sense leading to good fights is an absurd conclusion to come to. What is the connection? There is none. When Strikeforce was the pinnacle of what a regional promotion should be, they were putting on horrible, horrible fights. I’m talking unwatchable shit. Most smart promoters in the US run amateur shows featuring untrained fighters getting paid absolutely nothing while they pocket ticket sales from 3,000 attendees.
There is also certainly no connection between charity and “poor business sense”. What a ridiculous statement.
Can you read, Alan? Mark asked why posters have a business first, fighters second mentality. I explained why people have that mentality. I did not address whether or not that mentality should be an issue in the current discussion, so who are you arguing with?
I’m not going to argue with you any more about good fights. We’ve had this argument before, and its clear to me we have no ground to discuss on.
The argument you’re making is nonsensical. Because the UFC has been cutthroat in the past regarding business matters and was successful, what does that have to do with good fights? Or charity being detrimental to the booking and promotion of good fights? There is no straight line. It doesn’t even make sense.
Whatever, Alan. No point to this.
There’s nothing wrong with rooting for the UFC to be as successful as possible, which is what you’re talking about. What I’m talking about are the “Zuffaites” that seem to care about Dana far more than any fighter. Just think about how ridiculous an NHL site would look if half of its posters spent all their time obsessing about Gary Bettman and ignoring the actual game qualities and players. People would think they were insane. But so many UFC fans care more about it in the CNBC sense than the ESPN sense. And that goes far beyond “Because I want to make sure they can always afford good fights” in a lot of cases.
And as Alan pointed out, nobody is talking about Rampage’s profit sharing idea being good, or demanding they get paid as much as Mayweather. It’s all realistic.
Mark, people don’t want to hear about the business of MMA except from Meltzer and in funny Dana White quips. Ever. “It breaks up the narrative” as if this is all a written storyline that shouldn’t be touched.
There will probably be stories coming out real soon about guys complaining about pay, and you’ll see the same reaction all over again. Its “smart business” to lowball the shit out of guys, but enraging and greedy when fighters decide to use what little leverage they have to seek more money and thus justified to cut or shelve them. Apparently that leads to “good fights”.
My economic philosophy doesn’t amount to wanting Dana to be richer. I’m a free market libertarian that believes in voluntary exchanges of goods and services. As such, I don’t think athletes are entitled to anything above and beyond what they bargained for. There are other career paths they can choose if they don’t like what they’re offered.
Similarly, if Zuffa suddenly went under and Dana White became bankrupt, I don’t think the fighters have any obligation to set up a retirement fund for him just because he made them lots of money.
Then you wouldn’t object to fighters banding together and demanding better pay, benefits, working conditions, and control over their own careers?
They can do whatever they want, but as long as the top stars aren’t willing to sacrifice for the curtain jerker it’s all talk in the end.
Again, this isn’t a issue of “give people stupid with their money free hand outs because you should pity the poor.” It has to do with UFC playing with fire 10 years down the line when the guys they cut continue fighting regional shows because they’re broke and wind up like Jerry Quarry. It’s just common sense to at least make it look like you did all you could to prevent that, even if it’s offering to put guys through community college or paying for brainscans to make sure they find abnormalities as soon as possible. That’s going to bankrupt them?
They want to be as legitimate as ball sports, yet they’re continuing to operate like the WWE most people in the media think they’re just one step above where they make billions and plead poverty when it is convenient.
It’s because Dana is more a cartoon character than a normal person. It’s the same reason Donald Trump is so overrated as a businessman. People wish they could be shit talking billionaires, who wouldn’t want to be Dana? But what makes him different from other sport commissioners is he knows he has total job security. Others couldn’t insult players and journalists and expect it to be ignored by their owners.