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UFC president Dana White says fighter pay within the group will not change dramatically whereas he’s in his present place, telling GQ in a video published Thursday that he believes fighters “receives a commission what they’re speculated to receives a commission.”
The subject of fighter pay has been a hot-button difficulty in MMA for years and was thrust additional into the highlight by YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in recent months. White has mentioned he believes high-profile boxers are overpaid and reiterated within the GQ interview that he thinks UFC fighters are paid extra fairly.
“Boxing has completely been destroyed due to cash and all of the issues that go on,” White mentioned. “It is by no means gonna occur whereas I am right here. Imagine me, these guys receives a commission what they’re speculated to receives a commission. They eat what they kill. They get a proportion of the pay-per-view buys. And the cash is unfold out amongst all of the fighters.”
UFC pays fighters round 20% of its income, in line with knowledge unearthed through the ongoing antitrust lawsuit introduced by some former fighters towards the promotion. Different main sports activities leagues, such because the NFL, NBA and MLB, share round half of their income with gamers, however these leagues are unionized and athletes are in a position to collectively discount through gamers’ associations. MMA fighters, and people within the UFC particularly, do not have something related presently.
“Boxing has completely been destroyed, due to cash and all of the issues that go on. It is by no means gonna occur whereas I am right here. Imagine me, these guys receives a commission what they’re speculated to receives a commission. They eat what they kill. They get a proportion of the pay-per-view buys. And the cash is unfold out amongst all of the fighters.”
Dana White, on pay raises in UFC
UFC fighters are categorised as unbiased contractors, which may make collective bargaining tough legally. A number of makes an attempt at unionizing UFC fighters have failed prior to now 10 years, together with one by former baseball agent Jeff Borris.
“There aren’t too many issues you possibly can discuss s— in regards to the UFC about,” White advised GQ. “When you take a look at what we have achieved with the enterprise the final 22 years, it is unimaginable. By no means been achieved, ever, the issues we have achieved within the struggle enterprise. You all the time must have one thing to bitch about, I suppose. And fighters all the time need to earn more money.”
White and executives from UFC mother or father firm Endeavor have argued that fighter pay has gone up exponentially over the previous decade, although UFC’s income has additionally grown steeply since then.
“No main sports activities group pays its athletes as poorly as Dana White & UFC,” Paul tweeted in response to White’s GQ feedback. “If u do not see that then you might be one in every of Dana’s sheeps. They maintain speaking about promoting out 21 occasions in a row however by no means speaking about elevating fighter pay, giving them healthcare & truthful income cut up.”
The antitrust lawsuit filed towards UFC in 2014 by former fighters, together with Cung Le, claims the promotion is a monopoly or a monopsony, controlling the overwhelming majority of the game’s market share, locking fighters intro restrictive contracts that do not enable them to check their worth on the open market and suppressing wages.
The lawsuit is led by fighters from the MMA Fighters Affiliation, which doesn’t need unionization. As an alternative, the MMAFA would really like boxing’s Muhammad Ali Act, which provides contractual safety to boxers, to be prolonged to MMA. That extension to MMA was introduced up as a invoice to the Home of Representatives by Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., in 2017 however has since been caught in legislative limbo. The UFC has spent a whole lot of hundreds lobbying towards the potential regulation.
In 2020, a federal decide mentioned he would grant class certification within the antitrust case, making it a category motion that may enable a better variety of fighters to be paid a share of what could possibly be billions in damages. The decide, Richard Boulware, has not made class certification official, and the case appears poised to proceed for a lot of extra years.
“The UFC has established a pay construction that pays fighters lower than 20% of income,” MMAFA founder Rob Maysey advised ESPN. “The one option to decide what fighters are ‘speculated to receives a commission’ is to take away the contractual restraints the UFC imposes and produce true competitors for fighter companies to the market.”
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