Why Does the UFC Keep Such a Big Roster?

[FreedomCricket]

People keep saying things like this to explain the UFC's watered down cards, but the number of UFC events hasn't actually gone up since the ESPN deal in 2019. The UFC significantly increased the number of events in 2014 (46 events) and has hovered between 39-43 every year since then.

The real issue is the UFC's business model. They stack the roster with cheap regional-level fighters so they can keep the overhead costs down. Why fill a card with top 15 fighters making 80/80 when you can just pay a bunch of regional fighters 15/15?

The entire rights package will cost $1.5 billion over the length of a five-year deal, according to ESPN and multiple reports. Variety first reported the agreement on Wednesday morning.

The deal consists of 30 UFC Fight Night events per year, including 10 main cards on ESPN's television networks. The other 20 will stream on ESPN+, the company's newly launched streaming service.

UFC Fight Night events consist of 12 bouts.

Additionally, ESPN networks will air preliminary bouts prior to 12 pay-per-view events in 2019.

source: https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/23581729/espn-ufc-reach-five-year-television-rights-deal

 

[PeterGriffin]

I am 100% sure the UFC believes every PPV they put on is worth millions of PPV buys and the price is justified.

I am also thoroughly convinced they've bought into their own kool-aid because the reality of it all is much, much different.

Half of that ~600 person roster is most likely only getting 10k/10k anyways. Almost cheaper to keep potential talent locked up than to wait for them to turn heads elsewhere and become more expensive.

 

[Killer Kadoogan]

for the illusion, and to potentially not give other "prospects" to other orgs.

 

[tritestill]

Ridiculous thread

 

[tequilaboy]

Its all about control. Fighter on tje roaster are not fighting in other orgs..

 

[laleggenda27]

source: https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/23581729/espn-ufc-reach-five-year-television-rights-deal

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here, so I'll just reiterate my point. The number of UFC events hasn't gone up since the ESPN deal. There were 46 events in 2014, and between 39-43 events every year thereafter. Yes, the ESPN deal requires them to put on a certain number of events. But the UFC had already been staging that number of events for 5 years before the ESPN deal.

 

[FreedomCricket]

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here, so I'll just reiterate my point. The number of UFC events hasn't gone up since the ESPN deal. There were 46 events in 2014, and between 39-43 events every year thereafter. Yes, the ESPN deal requires them to put on a certain number of events. But the UFC had already been staging that number of events for 5 years before the ESPN deal.

I just posted the link of a (or one of the) source for the "ufc needs to have a minimum number of events" line that people use.

I said the same thing as you, well nearly. Technically since 2019, the number of yearly events went up by like 2-3 additional on average as compared to the previous 4 or 5 years.

 

[Croaker]

Because the UFC is not omniscient.

I know this is hard for people to understand, but the UFC doesn't actually know in advance who the best fighters are. The only way to find out is to have them fight each other.

How is the UFC supposed to know who the top 30 fighters are that they are supposed to sign?

Should every fighter who loses their first two UFC fights be automatically cut? If that's the case, guys like Rountree, Merab and RDA would have been gone.

I hate to break it to you, but before the UFC was the end all be all we had a good idea who the best fighters in the world were

 

[Paladin]

It's always puzzled me why the UFC keeps such a big roster. (~600?)

Why doesn't the UFC just cut it down to say ~300 and only keep the elite / high potential fighters.

Then the UFC can just make more stacked cards and that profit can get redistributed.

Fans get more exciting cards and fighters can get paid more as there are less mouths to feed.

To feed the machine bro

 

[WaylonMercy5150]

I love that there are fight nights almost every weekend and pretty darn good PPVs at least once a month. They need fighters because they need to constantly have fights. A lot of the fighters they sign are merely enhancement talent; used to make established talent look better by putting on a great performance. Sometimes they strike gold and sign young prospects with a ton of talent and sometimes they sign guys because they believe they will lose to a more solidified talent who needs a good win. Either way they need fighters and they need to book constantly.

 

[theincognito]

Keep the same number of cards but cut the number of fights. Cards don't need 11-14 fights. Even ticket holders don't show up to watch the first several. About 8 should be the standard.

A lot of the current early prelim guys should be in LFA or their other Fight Pass feeder promotions.

 

[PaulieVegas27]

You can't have a weekly event unless you have enough fighters. Granted, that doesn't mean a large portion of fighters are unworthy of their spot, because they are. Just that you need the volume if you're going to put on so many events.

 

[EndlessCritic]

I hate to break it to you, but before the UFC was the end all be all we had a good idea who the best fighters in the world were

That's correct. Because the total pool of fighters was extremely small. And virtually all of the elite fighters came from a small number of places in the world.

Similarly, beating pretty much anyone who had recently fought in the UFC guaranteed a ticket to get signed by the UFC.

Practically the entire ACA roster right now is UFC level. MMA has grown massively and there is elite talent coming out of every pocket in the world.

 

[AdamWarlock]

how else they gonna fill such watered down cards so often

 

[Croaker]

That's correct. Because the total pool of fighters was extremely small. And virtually all of the elite fighters came from a small number of places in the world.

Similarly, beating pretty much anyone who had recently fought in the UFC guaranteed a ticket to get signed by the UFC.

Practically the entire ACA roster right now is UFC level. MMA has grown massively and there is elite talent coming out of every pocket in the world.

There is not elite talent in every pocket of the world. There is no elite talent in the majority of weight classes. Heavyweights been dead for 10+ years. LHW has been dead since like 2011. MW sucks and pretty much always has outside of the top 5, who have always been overrated AF. 170 is super mid. 155 had a real estate salesman vs Khabib for the title etc. 155 had a lot of potential, so did 145, but the best fighters were split among different promotions.

 

[Stump]

There's a few reasons, as have been mentioned:

- Future development: nobody knows who the best fighters are going to be in the future. Some of the best fighters, to say nothing of some of the most exciting and hype-producing fighters of today were indistinguishable from the run-of-the-mill fighters only a little while ago. To have the best and most exciting fighters signed at any one time, you have to have had them signed already and have them develop while under contract with you.

-Number of fights: The UFC puts on a shitload of content. Cards almost every weekend. This means they simply need to have a lot of fighters ready to go on these cards.

- Competitive market domination: Every fighter signed for the UFC is a fighter not signed for a rival promotion. The UFC not only maximizes the chances it has a future contender/hypejob under contract by increasing the number of fighters it has signed, it also DECREASES the chances its rival organizations can do the same. There isn't really an opportunity cost here as the UFC doesn't pay these fighters unless they actually fight, so they can just sign them and lock them up out of the market and they put on enough fights to allow them to do this, they only pay them when they fight and as we've seen in the antitrust lawsuit, they have methods of meeting their contractual obligation of offering three fights per year to a fighter, while minimzing the risk that the fighters actually take these fights - for expensive contracts, they can offer fights they know they will lose or won't make any money, or will be buried on the prelims, knowing the fighter won't accept the fight, but the UFC can say they offered.

 

[EndlessCritic]

There is not elite talent in every pocket of the world. There is no elite talent in the majority of weight classes. Heavyweights been dead for 10+ years. LHW has been dead since like 2011. MW sucks and pretty much always has outside of the top 5, who have always been overrated AF. 170 is super mid. 155 had a real estate salesman vs Khabib for the title etc. 155 had a lot of potential, so did 145, but the best fighters were split among different promotions.

Aside from your statement that the best fighters have been split among different promotions, this is absolute nonsense.

Also, how dare you insult the good name of real estate salesmen.

 

[SuperNerd]

Because UFC is the draw.

 

[g*r*b]

In addition to the obvious "because they put on a shit-ton of events per contractual obligation" and other points multiply mentioned already...

1. The Oprahfication of series based on the idea of signing new talent. We originally had the Ultimate Fighter, where the idea was to hire one fighter, at most two, per season. Then Looking For a Fight, where each episode could involve signing a new fighter. Then the Contender series, which has become Dana handing out contracts to usually every win on a 5-fight card per show. "YOU get a contract ! and YOU get a contract !! ..." A fighter getting his dream realized is a quick shot of drama that's very viewer-friendly, and it's hard not to indulge in it.

2. Because of the various lawsuits pending against them, the UFC has tweaked some of their practices to not look quite as despotic. (It's barely lipstick-on-a-pig, more like a smear of Vaseline, but they still hope they'll look better in the eyes of future jurors.) One of them is no longer summarily dismissing one of their fighters — oops, I meant "independent contractors" — after one or two bad performances. Instead they'll generally let them fight out their contracts, no longer how long that takes.

3. More fights being put on also means more chances for fights to fall through from one of the guys getting injured before the event. It's not always easy to get replacements at the drop of a hat within the roster. But there's hoards of fighter out there that WILL take that fight at a moment's notice if it means they can finally say they are in the UFC. And because of #2 point, they won't be hired just for the fight but will be given a 4-fight deal.

 

[JustforBROCK]

Well we were having an anti trust lawsuit which involves this exact topic - but the morons settled. So.