UFC Business Model: Utterly Brilliant or Beyond Exploitative

Matthew Robi

Over the past decade, the Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts company experienced tremendous growth in popularity. The UFC is now worth over 10 billion dollars and showing no signs of slowing down.

Yet the UFC pays only 10% of its earnings to those same athletes drawing the fans in and paying the bills. Its fighters make very little in comparison to the profits they generate. UFC champions Francis Ngannou and Israel Adesanya —and social media fight celebrities like Jake Paul— have called into question the fairness and even legality of the UFC business model.

When Jake Paul was asked why he believes the UFC underpays their athletes, he replied: "Because one company is singlehandedly in control of all the fighters. In the WBC, the contracts are open; meanwhile, in the UFC it isn’t" (Paul). There are very real concerns about whether what the UFC is doing is even legal. There is no other popular sports organization with disclosed contracts.

The Cameroonian star Francis Ngannou explained how the UFC treats its athletes in an interview with Maverick Carter on The Shop's podcast. Francis said, “they let you pretend you are negotiating while you are not negotiating. Because either way you are still in the contract. [In] a 40-month contract, by 20 months they will come to negotiate. A little bit more money if you say yes. Then they are giving you a new 40 months. And they will start over because of the money they added. But, by that time your value is like maybe 2 or 3 times what they are offering" (Ngannou").

The fact that the WBC heavyweight champion makes 30-40 million dollars a fight and the UFC champion who arguably risks much more gets paid 600k a fight is ridiculous. There is not much of a debate to be had. But of course, Dana White (UFC president) had an objection anyway. He was on record saying "you don't see the guys actually bringing in the revenue complaining about pay, like a Connor Mcgregor". This argument can't be true since Ngannou and Adesanya (two of the UFC's most exciting active fighters) have publicly complained about their contract on numerous occasions now. Additionally, Ari Emanuel (part-owner of the UFC) came to the UFC/Dana White's defense saying, "since 2005, our fighter pay is up 600%" (Emanuel). Although this statistic seems exciting, it does not hold much merit, considering that Emanuel was comparing today's UFC, which is making 2000-4000% more in profit to a young organization that was hardly getting by at the time.

Slowly but surely, UFC fighters are understanding their value and exposing the UFC for what it really is, fraudulent.