Do you think UFC pay is stopping top athletes to become MMA fighters?

[ultra321]

I honestly think it's getting hit in the face that's the biggest deterrent

 

[AdamWarlock]

I honestly think it's getting hit in the face that's the biggest deterrent

honestly it's not that bad if you are only doing it 1 or 2 times a year
regular people get into fist fights without money all the time.

 

[jx820]

Those are far and few between, and those who were actually good in their previous sport are even fewer. Choosing MMA over other sports is different than failing in other sports and going to fighting. You don't build a talent pool by taking rejects and failures from other sports (or athletes that are older and often damaged coming from other sports).

Agreed, but when washed up MMA fighters leave to go do celebrity boxing we do tend to have a bit of a circle jerk around here about how much money they're going to make and how much better it is.

Also, if the money is so great everywhere else and so terrible in MMA why are these guys bothering? I keep hearing how the pay in MMA is uniquely terrible, but guys good enough to make it to the NFL keep coming over looking for that terrible money.

 

[ultra321]

honestly it's not that bad if you are only doing it 1 or 2 times a year
regular people get into fist fights without money all the time.

regular people aren't getting blasted in the choppers by pro fighters... except little old men in Dublin of course

 

[GSP_37]

No top athlete is going to take a pay cut from NBA, NFL to UFC.

 

[Lee_]

Agreed, but when washed up MMA fighters leave to go do celebrity boxing we do tend to have a bit of a circle jerk around here about how much money they're going to make and how much better it is.

Also, if the money is so great everywhere else and so terrible in MMA why are these guys bothering? I keep hearing how the pay in MMA is uniquely terrible, but guys good enough to make it to the NFL keep coming over looking for that terrible money.

OK but you are again talking tiny trickles and not the norm.

People are happy fighters make money in those Jake Paul type of fights because they have given a lot to the sport of MMA and haven't got enough in return, but relatively few even get this benefit. Like what- 3 or 4 fighters so far?

As far as the NFL, there has been a grand total of one good NFL player that actually gave a real try to the UFC (who was totally washed up and could not make a team by then in the NFL), the others were never that good at football. And that is again far from the norm- how many NFL players have actually fought in the UFC? A tiny sample that can in no way be generalized to any kind of significant portion of UFC fighters or NFL players. There is what- like less than a half dozen NFL players out of hundreds or thousands of guys that have fought in the UFC?

 

[rjmbrd]

Let's approach this backwards. Are there any top athletes that we believed to be on a path to the UFC that opted to do something more lucrative

For example Gabel Stevenson medaled at the Olympics and opted to sign with the WWE. I believe he was later released without performing and it remains to be seen if he will try his hand at MMA. I don't know that to be a financial decision, but I do think WWE stardom pays better in most cases.

If compensation is the problem there should be a bunch of these.

Conor left to box, got paid, then came right back. Big Frank left to box and is expected to get a big payday, but that hasn't panned out yet. It's worth noting they both did in fact become MMA fighters so it wasn't "stopping them from becoming MMA fighters".

Brock Lesnar and Kole Conrad (former Bellator Heavyweight Champion) BOTH attempted and failed to make the NFL before resorting to MMA as a backup option, with the Vikings and Jets respectively.

You would not BELIEVE how many Division I All American wrestlers are teaching high school gym for 60k/year with benefits and a pension. Thats how bad UFC pay is.

It's 12k show money in the UFC, at the highest level, to get your head punched in. These guys are taking brain damage in exchange for peanuts. Smart, suitably athletic young guys with options do not choose MMA. Only someone desperate or stupid would in most cases.

Until the revenue split is reasonable, upper weight divisions of MMA will continue to be an absolute embarrassment.

We've also seen plenty of athletes leave other sports and later pursue MMA. Morton, Mitrione, Hardy, Schuab, Marcus Jones. So the pay can't be that bad.

This is completely misinformed. Schaub was never signed to an NFL team, he never even made it through a training camp. He was not remotely a NFL caliber athelete, he wasn't even a standout collegiate player.

Mitirone has virtually zero NFL stats. He was injured and passed around, then shown the door without every really playing. If he could have continued getting NFL contracts, or was good enough to play, he would have.

Hardy and Jones were long washed out of football. You would want athletes of that caliber in their 20's, not literally looking for a second career after their first career in professional sports was used up.

 

[Qays Stetkevich]

That's why so many talented fighters turn to boxing.
And the best athletes in the world do not bother with MMA

If being in the Ufc only get you 100k a year and you have to pay your coaches and gym and taxes etc you get 50k in pocket then this isnt better than any office job in America, why would you risk brain damage for a job where you barely make ends meet.

Just seem like if your dream is to become a UFC fighter even if your dream came true it's not that good. I can't even imagine the fighters not making it in Ufc they probably need other side job just to survive

That's if you make it to the Ufc, and once you are out of Ufc what are you going to do? Are you going to be a trainer for younger fighter?

Seem like it's such a thankless sport.

The pay could be stopping some (very small percentage) of top athletic talent from competing, but I think that's actually a non-issue . . . .Because the overwhelming majority of great athletes of any variety don't want to have to train and compete in MMA in order to make their money. Pro MMA career is brutally savage. Even if the money was equal or better in mma than in all other mainstream sport s( LOL ) the overwhelming majority of top athletes would still choose football, soccer, basketball, rugby, track and field, swimming, tennis, . . . .pretty much anything, over the brutal grind, discipline, uncertainty, and tough training involved in being an elite MMA fighter. And even then your career isn't assured. The life of a soccer player compared to an mma fighter is . . . not comparable in terms of brutality their bodies go through, not to mention the mental aspect of a fight (or having to come back after a brutal loss in MMA. . . )

 

[Nathan LaMontagne]

Yes.

I mean look how many great athletes do pro wrestling instead.

Kurt Angle apparently got offers for MMA.

He went towards the paycheck.

 

[nostradumbass]

right, but even if you get "drafted" into ufc and not some minor fighting organization, you can still only make ends meet, that's the difference

if you watch tuf you see 20 fighters all with good fighting records and only 2 or 3 make it to the ufc

Because they lose to guys who aren't very good. If you show up to NFL tryouts and you aren't any good, that's that. There isn't a an option to train part time and give it a go in your 30s.

NFL also isn't boxing. There are lots of guys who spend years boxing and don't make any money.

 

[Tweak896]

Yes pay brings over more athletes, but there is more nuance to it. You can compare the UFC to the NFL when they get it to the same level. So many alternative orgs burn so much money under the same line of logic and eventually the investors get tired of it and they fold. More people need to watch MMA, it's a niche sport. More Conor's and Ronda's need to join and that's hard to exactly make stars like that. More normies need to watch.

 

[Kryptt]

No I do not. MMA has an endless supply of bodies...

 

[El Fernas]

MMA doesnt seem to have the money put into it, but do other combat sports have? Kickboxing guys are moving to MMA cause it seems the money (for them) its there, if MMA or Top kickboxing guys would had cut it in boxing they would be boxers, Muay Thay fighters are crazy good strikers, but im SURE the money isnt there either, so MMA as a whole is probably the 2nd best paid mainstream sport, is it unforgiving and not exactly the best career to have? Absolutely, but so do are those other combat sports if you dont make it, if you make it in boxing there is still the chance you dont get the huge purses, in MMA its the same, but the UFC gives the idea that if you made it to the UFC you are elite and should be paid elite level money, but both satements are false, just being in the UFC means shit in skills and pay, they have to fill so many cards that the level is quite wide, they NEED prelim level fighters, those cant make 100k a fight, just like prelim level boxers wont make 100k either.

Not defending UFC/MMA pay, but in the mid range the other sports are probably worst, boxing is great at the higher end tho, the stars get paid while stars in MMA make a fraction of what they would get in a boxing PPV, that probably needs to change.

 

[joeson]

If you're at the level where you're only making $100k/year in the UFC, then the equivalent level for boxing is probably like $30k. Yeah, the same applies with any sport if you try but come up short and don't make it to the top.

What's the top, though? Making it to the NFL as a rookie nets you $750K as a minimum. Same with the NHL. $770K in MLB, $1.1 million in the NBA. What's the minimum in the UFC? How much do fighters coming off the Contender series make? What percentage of the UFC's roster makes over $100K/year? 5%? 10%? 15%? Let's say it is 15%. That would mean that you need to be in the top 15% of the top league in the sport to make 10% of the minimum salary in the NBA. Why would anyone choose that if they had any other options?

Dana and the Fertittas worked exceptionally hard and invested a ton of money to shake the image that nothing but bums and rejects from other sports fight in MMA. They keep this up and it won't be just an image.

 

[joeson]

What's the top, though? Making it to the NFL as a rookie nets you $750K as a minimum. Same with the NHL. $770K in MLB, $1.1 million in the NBA. What's the minimum in the UFC? How much do fighters coming off the Contender series make? What percentage of the UFC's roster makes over $100K/year? 5%? 10%? 15%? Let's say it is 15%. That would mean that you need to be in the top 15% of the top league in the sport to make 10% of the minimum salary in the NBA. Why would anyone choose that if they had any other options?

Dana and the Fertittas worked exceptionally hard and invested a ton of money to shake the image that nothing but bums and rejects from other sports fight in MMA. They keep this up and it won't be just an image.

It would be different if the UFC were still struggling financially but they are making record profits and are still driving down salaries. It's now become common knowledge that the pay is horrible. Sure the UFC brand is so big now that it still attracts fighters who are looking to make it big but that won't last forever. Eventually, the talent will find other places to go and when they do the reputation that they worked so hard to build will go with it.

 

[cmw43]

Yes.

I mean look how many great athletes do pro wrestling instead.

Kurt Angle apparently got offers for MMA.

He went towards the paycheck.

When Kurt went into Wrestling MMA wasn't really a viable option.

He was getting UFC talks around the time of TUF 9 and he considered it but realised his body was too shot.

 

[Greg House]

Pay is already too fucking high. When I started watching this sport, champions used to win 6 digit checks per fight. They would fight 2 or 3 times a year back then. Now the champions are getting paid 7 digits checks per fight, so they fight once a year. They wait as top contenders for 20 months in order to get a titleshot like Edwards or Colby. Or even 3 years like Jones. I feel sorry for the new fans that started watching in this era.

I blame social media too. You guys in here bitching about 12k salaries while these guys promote every brand you can name on their social media to millions of their followers that they get just for being a UFC fighter. They are doing all right financially fighting as little as possible. Worry about your salary instead.

This sucks. Fuck off with your "A Level Atheltes" that woulda, shoulda, coulda be in the sport. Do you think that little butterfly Lebron James would agree to get punched in the face for a couple extra millions? Nah, dude.

They need to stop paying champions/contenders so much money. Nobody fights each other anymore. And there's not even competition. Bellator went bankrupt. PFL has been in the red for years. ONE transitioned to Muay Thai and barely has MMA fights anymore. Rizin has become just a regional promotion. MMA doesn't even sell. UFC should be careful. They have the pink goof throwing away money in this slapping shit, they should be investing in the sport. Expand the contender series, make it a B league with shows every weekend in the Apex.

 

[cmw43]

What's the top, though? Making it to the NFL as a rookie nets you $750K as a minimum. Same with the NHL. $770K in MLB, $1.1 million in the NBA. What's the minimum in the UFC? How much do fighters coming off the Contender series make? What percentage of the UFC's roster makes over $100K/year? 5%? 10%? 15%? Let's say it is 15%. That would mean that you need to be in the top 15% of the top league in the sport to make 10% of the minimum salary in the NBA. Why would anyone choose that if they had any other options?

Dana and the Fertittas worked exceptionally hard and invested a ton of money to shake the image that nothing but bums and rejects from other sports fight in MMA. They keep this up and it won't be just an image.

It's a completely different thing comparing big time team league sports against prize fighting.

There's 450 pro NBA players, how many kids out there are playing basketball? 20 million youth players, half a million high school players and 25,000 college players so only a very small fraction make it the big money. I'm sure there's thousands of elite athlete college players who didn't make the NBA and don't end up having other athletic options.

These NBA players are playing a grueling and 82 games a season and bringing in money every game from tickets and TV.

A UFC fighter might fight once per year on an untelevised prelim, do you think they should be getting paid a comparable salary to the big team league sports?

 

[MMAProfessional]

That's why so many talented fighters turn to boxing.
And the best athletes in the world do not bother with MMA

If being in the Ufc only get you 100k a year and you have to pay your coaches and gym and taxes etc you get 50k in pocket then this isnt better than any office job in America, why would you risk brain damage for a job where you barely make ends meet.

Just seem like if your dream is to become a UFC fighter even if your dream came true it's not that good. I can't even imagine the fighters not making it in Ufc they probably need other side job just to survive

That's if you make it to the Ufc, and once you are out of Ufc what are you going to do? Are you going to be a trainer for younger fighter?

Seem like it's such a thankless sport.

A HUGE reason. There have been football players who were track stars and chose football. Many high level athletes could have gone pro in other sports but either chose the one they excelled most in or get the most money. I think Jones might have been able to do other things (maybe not though we've seen him trying to dunk) but he ended up having a kid young so that got rid of any sports career (stopped wrestling for instance iirc.) Then we have a high level athlete going in the UFC in his early 20's dominating fighters who have been doing it for most of their lives. Yoel Romero was a crazy athlete and got to the top at age 70. There's no reason for a high level athlete to pursue MMA when they can make WAY more money in other sports and be set for life with healthcare and all that.

Also MMA isn't cheap to get into. You can pick up a basketball, kick a soccer ball, and throw a football around even if you are dirt poor. Same reason why hockey players aren't the highest level athletes because the cost of admission filters out a huge portion of the population. I was lucky if my parents gave me 20 bucks to go to open skate.

 

[markys00]

Yes.

MMA pays awfully,

on the high end (ufc in particular) because of how restrictive their sponsorship opportunities are due to contract conditions.

For the vast bulk of fighters it's even worse with limited sponsorship opportunities combined with shitty pay.

Nobody dreams of making ufc money.

Lol u don't know how much they get paid, obviously