UFC Millionaire Rate Compared to NHL and NBA
by Zak Woods on Jan 25, 2010 5:29 PM EST
in Analysis
17 comments
Dana White recently told Esquire Magazine that approximately eighteen UFC fighters make a million per year.
White estimates that eighteen of his ultimate fighters earn in the millions per annum. Many others make in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. New guys make fifty to seventy-five, "depending where you are in the pecking order."
Historically this is a great improvement for MMA fighters but that doesn't mean the UFC is leading the way in athlete compensation, far from it in fact, but that doesn't mean there isn't merit in this revelation.
Inadvertently, Dana White provided us with metric to measure the UFC's financial status compared to other major sports. As Zuffa is a privately held entity the only information we have regarding the fighter salaries comes from the payouts reported by the the state athletic commissions. Outside of that data we are mostly in the dark on what the average UFC fighter's salary is. That being said we do know that sponsorship dollars are important to middle and bottom tier fighters (just look at Nate Quarry vs. Fight Mafia).
First, let us assume that White isn't exaggerating with how many fighters are making a million-plus a year. Let us also assume that the money White is referencing comes directly from Zuffa as oppose to Dana including sponsorship deals within his tally. Finally, we have no idea what kind of range Dana is talking about --it could be $1.005 million a year or $35 million per year, who knows?-- thus we need a metric for comparison and the only one available is the over a million dollars made per year. Thus we can compare total roster size versus the percentage making over a million dollars for the UFC compared to two other leagues: the NHL and NBA (as we have this data easily available).
Currently there are 219 fighters on the UFC's roster, if only 18 are making over a million per year that means 8.2% of the roster is making over a million.
WKR used HoopsHype.com to count how many NBA players are making over a million dollars a year. The final tally: 378 players out of 452 make over a million dollars per year for a whopping 83.6% of the total NBA roster. Only 74 players make under a million and only eight, or 1.8% of the total NBA players, makes under a hundred thousand dollars a year.
WKR followed a similar methodology with the NHL salaries for 2009-10; with 700 hundred active hockey players, 403 or 57.6% make over a million dollars a year leaving only 297 or 42.4% that make under a million (Note: the lowest salary is $475,000 per year).
| Size Total Roster |
% of Roster paid over $1million per/year |
% of Roster paid under $1million per/year |
|
| UFC | 219 | 8.2% | 91.8% |
| NBA | 452 | 83.6% | 16.4% |
| NHL | 700 | 57.6% | 42.4% |
Why is this kind of analysis important? It is important to understand the tremendous chasm that exists between athlete pay between the major sport leagues and the UFC. If Dana White truly believes that MMA and the UFC will achieve a position of dominance within the sporting world in the next ten years these numbers will have to be dramatically different in that time.
Obviously the UFC's business model is different than the NBA's or the NHL's but when one sets such lofty goals such comparisons are warranted if not vital.
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if you mean they go; “Dana is right the UFC will be the biggest sport in the world in 10 years” but the second you say okay well this what they need to achieve then they gp, “Uh Huh! that’s not a fair comparison!”
watchkalibrun.com
Yes, I read a lot of that over there . . . so much I didn’t even bother to comment. These are the same commentors who will fill every org comparison article with comments equating the UFC to the NFL.
mmalogic pointed out it wasn’t the NFL, MLB, etc design to bloat the payroll to 50% of the revenue, still its a factor when competing for labor. Yes, the UFC does need to compete for labor. Boxing experts always make the excuse the sport could be better and return to it’s heyday but their athletes are now competing in the NFL. Only the top 10% of the UFC actually sells, it’s no coincidences only 10% of the UFC roster is considered top tier athlete worthy of a ticket sale. In comparison, even the worst NFL franchise has athletes who drive tickets sales. The NFL’s large payroll is a big reason it never runs out of labor to sell.
It’s not hard to find evidence of this concept. MMA biggest star, Brock Lesnar first tired to make his living playing NFL football before turning to plan B, MMA. The UFC doesn’t break PPV sales figures without an athlete like Lesnar and they would make plenty more money if they had more athletes the caliber of Lesnar. However, more economic advantages exists being a 2nd tier player in the NFL.
As somebody that has seen 3 of 4 Minnesota teams bailed out I think the comparison is bullshit. Only the Vikings have not gotten public money for stadiums. How many teams need public money to be "competitive" and would not be able to make a profit without a jacked up stadium filling their pockets? And the Vikings are making it clear that if they don’t get public money, they will leave.
Wild, Twins, Wolves, Vikings…all need the public to help them out.
I like the idea of fighters making more money, but the major sports require arenas and stadiums to make money. Not a good business plan.
Right now, the UFC pays out between 20-30% to the fighters. Should that increase? Yes. Will it reach the levels of pro sports? Not likely. Many major sports pay out 60%. The UFC pays maybe half that at this time. I think it time we will see it raise to 40% but likely not much more.
If baseball teams, for example, adjusted payroll so they made money on the actual games, they would pay a lot less.
This has nothing to do with nuthugging, it has to do with running a business.
Right now, the UFC pays out between 20-30% to the fighters.
that is pure speculation.
Not a good business plan.
How is it not good business to have the public build you a stadium or threaten leaving? It might not be ethical or fair but it is a great way to make a filthy amount of money.
but the major sports require arenas and stadiums to make money
this is one of the knocks against the UFC for their longterm health. They have no tangible assets like a stadium
This has nothing to do with nuthugging, it has to do with running a business.
I appreciate you not flaming the crap out of this but this is not an attempt to skewer the UFC. Just trying to put things in perspective relative to the rest of the sporting world
watchkalibrun.com
Any plan that requires public help is not an ideal one. Sure, one has to give them credit for getting so many communities to dump money into them, but my point is that most teams can’t survive based on the revenue from the actual product. The UFC does and gets heat for doing so.
As far as 20-30% goes, that is coming from factoring in ppv precentages based on the publicly disclosed scale (from the Couture/Zuffa mess). I am using the revenue from gate and estimated ppv buys along with disclosed payroll and ppv cuts for known guys (GSP, Lesnar on UFC 100). At this point, I think virtually all of us accept that the regular headlines are getting a cut of the ppv. Liddell, Ortiz, GSP, Lesnar, Silva, Penn, Forrest, Franklin among others.
Using that, UFC 100 was in the mid to upper 20%. I am not including event sponsorships or any other revenue, nor am I including any fighter sponsorships.
None of us truly know how much is being paid out. Vladimir Matyushenko just came out and said that he was paid his show fee for his cancelled fight and Esquire peice showed that Shogun was paid more, The UFC never made those public, nor do we know just how much is paid out backstage. We do know that extra bonuses based on the fights are not uncommon. I have read comments from guys like Karo, Kalib and Leben as well as hearing it from guys like Sherk.
I guess my point is that I don’t think you can compare the UFC (or any other MMA org) to the major team sports. If only because all of those pay out so much that they require public funding to make money.
That is my own opinion. I don’t want to pay another penny for the Vikings after getting nailed by the Twins, Wolves and Wild.
I don’t dislike your post because, if nothing else, it prompts discussions like this. My comment about nuthugging stems from the first comment. Over on Bloody Elbow, there are some excellent comments and debate, but some quickly say that disagreeing means that the poster is a UFC nuthugger. That is as valid as me calling you anti-UFC. Both are a load of crap. I don’t recall seeing too many folks on here or BE repeating Dana’s comments as you suggest.
Readers need to respect the views of writers, but the writers should also give the readers more credit. It is a two way street.
That is my own opinion. I don’t want to pay another penny for the Vikings after getting nailed by the Twins, Wolves and Wild.
yeah it sucks how the professional leagues have roped cities into paying for top notch stadiums but they can always threaten to leave and as long as some city is willing to pay for it, a la Oklahoma City, it will be a fact of life in North American Sports.
I agree that the UFC’s business model isn’t the equivalent to the major sports. I even state so at the end
Obviously the UFC’s business model is different than the NBA’s or the NHL’s but when one sets such lofty goals such comparisons are warranted if not vital.
The reason why I wrote this is to put some quantifiable metrics on the UFC vs. the other sports for Dana White’s 10 year proclamation
None of us truly know how much is being paid out. Vladimir Matyushenko just came out and said that he was paid his show fee for his cancelled fight and Esquire peice showed that Shogun was paid more, The UFC never made those public, nor do we know just how much is paid out backstage. We do know that extra bonuses based on the fights are not uncommon. I have read comments from guys like Karo, Kalib and Leben as well as hearing it from guys like Sherk.
It is great that the UFC does that and subo and I talked about it on Cage Cast.
watchkalibrun.com
UFC is worth ~ 1-1.2 billion, in 2009 their revenue was probably >500 million
NHL revenue – 2.56 billion in 2008
NBA revenue – 3.2 billion
MLB revenue – 6.3 billion
NFL revenue – 6 billion
watchkalibrun.com
Exactly, the UFC makes literally a fraction as much money to begin with. So expressing the payroll as a percentage of revenue would be a much more fair comparison. I wonder how those numbers look.
in his estimation, he’s prob including their money from sponsors (y’know, ones he HASN’T banned).
Gatti. Dekkers. Pele. Aoki. Kang. Vanderlei. Basillio. Harry Greb.
by theworldsoldestsport on Jan 26, 2010 12:01 PM EST reply actions
The truth is that we will never know what fighters make. The orgs, UFC and Strikeforce, disclose only what is required and 99% of the fighters opt not talk about money. I am not simply talking about the fight purse, but other income as well. How many guys talk about how much they make from sponsors or seminars?
When Tito became a free agent, he was asked how much he wanted and would not give an answer. These guys have little interest in anyone knowing what they make. On the occasions that I have had a fighter give me some info about extra bonuses, it was only when I promised not to publicly disclose it. Shogun never came out and said he got almost double his disclosed pay. Maty did disclose getting his to show money, but did not say how much that was.
MMA Payout
offereing a dissenting opinion that is also worth reading.
I understand what Zak is trying to say here, just I don’t think the comparison is completely valid.
“The UFC didn’t just appear out of thin air in 2005…”
No, but it did just start turning a profit sometime around then. People need to understand, TUF basically saved Zuffa from bankruptcy, and the first season started almost exactly 5 years ago. And like we’ve already said, their entire earnings are still less than $500 million… that’s earnings, not profit. Could they pay their guys more? Sure, but not HUGELY more, and we’re already seeing the pay rates creep up even compared to a year ago. But there simply isn’t room in the budget to start paying every average fighter 6 or 7 figures like in the major sports.
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