Lorenzo Fertitta Interview with the Atlantic

Lorenzo Fertitta, one of the owners of Zuffa, the UFC and WEC, recently gave an interview to the Atlantic. One of the most interesting exchanges revolved around fighter's pay.

DS: Now one thing that people have been talking a lot about lately, some politely, some not, is the percentage of that pay per view and gate that’s going to fighters. It’s a low number, it’s 5-8%. You look at boxing, you’re talking about numbers that are, depending on who’s fighting when, 50%. Guys are going out in the ring, they can get killed. Why is the percentage that’s going to fighters in mixed martial arts so low?

LF: A, that’s not true. That’s not true. B, What you have to understand is that the fighters make a base amount. Okay? And on top of that, they have incentives based upon how we perform. Because what was happening was, I was losing so much money every event that I wasn’t willing to go and guarantee big amounts. What I would say to a guy, —I’m talking about the guys that we think make a difference, like Chuck Liddell. ‘Obviously we want you in, we can pay you x, and you know, once we hit a certain mark, we’ll cut you in on the pay per view. Okay?’ I think Randy Couture broke his confidentiality agreement, put it all out, so everybody got a pretty good idea of how it works. It’s kind of, ‘you eat what you kill kind of thing.’ And the fighters like it. You know, they’re fine with it. So when people say, guys are only making 5-8% or whatever, that’s not counting the back end of the deal, which is multiples upon multiples greater than what the base amount is

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Lorenzo's response illustrates how important it is to have transparency with financial records. For those that would respond, the UFC and Zuffa are private companies they have the right to keep these things secret (which is totally their right), I would counter that lack of transparency created the Randy Couture situation as well as the current economic crisis.

I agree that there is a need to control costs and have a sliding pay scale for what level a fighter has attained. However the reporting of only base salaries with hidden bonuses of undisclosed amounts is a serious issue. Besides with MMA lacking any clear statistical measurement of success i.e. 40 homeruns, 1,000 rushing season etc. this type of reward system becomes extremely hazy. It could be viewed as favoritism, one of the chief complaints Tito Ortiz lobbed at Dana White regarding his relationship with Chuck Liddell.

At one point in the article Fertitta claims Tito Ortiz made 6 million dollars in a period where he fought three times. That information would be great to have in the public realm before Tito starts running his mouth instead of retroactively releasing the information.

The debate over compensation and what is a fair wage will never end. If there is one thing professional sports can teach us, its that athletes will always demand more money while owners and executives will try to hoard it.