Fertitta defends UFC’s pay scale

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                                Fertitta defends UFC’s pay scale

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                            <strong class="ArticleSource">[yahoo.com]</strong>


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Though there is a public perception that the UFC has far outpaced boxing in terms of pay-per-view sales, Fertitta said it’s not the case, at least not in terms of pay-per-view sales and revenue per fight. There are only a handful of major boxing pay-per-view cards each year, while the UFC puts on 14-16. Inevitably, though, the largest pay-per-view results are from boxing cards.

As a result, Fertitta pointed out, those fighters make more.

In September, Mayweather-Ortiz sold 1.25 million pay-per-view units and generated $78.44 million in revenue. In November, the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez bout did 1.5 million pay-per-view buys. Though no official revenue number was announced, it was well over $70 million.

Such numbers are vastly larger than those for the UFC, which also charges $10 to $25 less for its pay-per-view cards than big-time boxing events. The UFC charges $44.95 for pay-per-view. Major boxing events go for up to $70, but change according to the card.

In addition, major boxing events draw a significantly higher paid gate. Pacquiao-Marquez did an $11.6 million gate, while Mayweather-Ortiz did $9 million. The largest-ever UFC gate was $12 million for UFC 129, but the next biggest was UFC 66 at $5.397 million.

“The numbers that a Pacquiao or Mayweather fight will do, relative to ours, are not even close,” Fertitta said. “When you talk about it, first of all, their [pay-per-view] price point is higher. You’re talking about them doing 1.2, 1.5 million buys. The reality is, we’ve done that one time. Beyond that, we have a tremendous success story, but a lot of our fights are doing 300,000, 400,000. Our gates aren’t $12 million. You see what our gates are: Sometimes, they’re $2 million. Sometimes, they’re $3 million, but the revenue equations aren’t even close.”


read entire article...


 

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White Mike Tyson - The real question is how much do they pay the payed posters?

The White Mike Tyson just KO'd the English language in a dozen words.

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 and yet the undercard fighters on these boxing ppvs get paid LESS than undercard fighters for the ufc

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Why does Fertitta have to defend the UFC's pay scale? It is THEIR business and they can pay what they deem is fair. There is no set standard and if there was then they would be the ones to dictate it. They are no a union and should never be one. Nonunion companies can pay whatever they want so why should the UFC be under the light for this?

Fighters come in groves wanting a chance to fight in the UFC all knowing what the pay is; and they jump at it. If they paid less it would not change. It is the big show and it pays far more than other MMA venues.

There are many professional jobs out there that pay very little but people get into it due to they love it. Police, Fire, Teachers, etc.; they can make $hit for many years but people are still filling the positions with many being turned away because too many. And these are unionized; nobody complaining about them making too little. And how about the military? They defend your countries and put their lives on the line; nobody making a big complaint about how little them make.

All this just seems a big waste of time. To the UFC, you're doing find and for those in your organization that don't thinks so, there are many people willing to fill those shoes for less money.

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Water is wet!

-UG News

lol...of course he's going to defend it. Do people think he wouldn't thereby taking a chance of himself making less $$$. Please.

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Here's a question my dad keeps asking me and I don't know how to answer.

Why is the UFC so secret with their pay? Why don't they just tell everyone that X fighter got contracted X amount of dollars and received X amount take home pay?

Is it to avoid taxes? Incentive for fighters to perform?

Anyone can google what each NHL, NFL, MLB player makes, but you only find estimates on what UFC fighters take home.

I don't think they are underpaid at all. Just why all the secrecy?

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Captfireeyes - Here's a question my dad keeps asking me and I don't know how to answer.



Why is the UFC so secret with their pay? Why don't they just tell everyone that X fighter got contracted X amount of dollars and received X amount take home pay?



Is it to avoid taxes? Incentive for fighters to perform?



Anyone can google what each NHL, NFL, MLB player makes, but you only find estimates on what UFC fighters take home.



I don't think they are underpaid at all. Just why all the secrecy?



many reasons...one, they dont want competitors to be able to know what they pay to fighters, another, some fighters dont want people to know...also, when you graduate high school and get a job, see if everyone at your work knows what everyone else makes-99% sure you will not know and will not be permitted to talk about it

 

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goku - 
Captfireeyes - Here's a question my dad keeps asking me and I don't know how to answer.

Why is the UFC so secret with their pay? Why don't they just tell everyone that X fighter got contracted X amount of dollars and received X amount take home pay?

Is it to avoid taxes? Incentive for fighters to perform?

Anyone can google what each NHL, NFL, MLB player makes, but you only find estimates on what UFC fighters take home.

I don't think they are underpaid at all. Just why all the secrecy?

many reasons...one, they dont want competitors to be able to know what they pay to fighters, another, some fighters dont want people to know...also, when you graduate high school and get a job, see if everyone at your work knows what everyone else makes-99% sure you will not know and will not be permitted to talk about it
 


It's also in their contract. That neither the UFC nor the fighter will post their salary. When Coenen did it, she was already cut...and she probably won't be coming back for what she did.

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Makes sense, most people don't want others to know what they make.

Plus, if it was made public, you would probably see a lot of fighters say "X fighter got paid X amount for his shitty performance, why did I only get this?"

I find this pay model promotes better fights.

Albert Pujols just signed a contract for 256 mil for 10 years. I guarantee he would be more motivated to get more home runs if his contract was for 10 million a year plus bonuses for every run he hits. Fuck, as long as he does average, he's getting that 256 mil.

If Ovechkin only scores 15 goals in a season, he still gets his 9 mil. I think the UFC is just keeping it so the fighters stay motivated so they avoid situations like Cro Cop vs Mir. Cro Cop knew he wasn't getting cut, so he fought like shit.

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Captfireeyes - Here's a question my dad keeps asking me and I don't know how to answer.

Why is the UFC so secret with their pay? Why don't they just tell everyone that X fighter got contracted X amount of dollars and received X amount take home pay?

Is it to avoid taxes? Incentive for fighters to perform?

Anyone can google what each NHL, NFL, MLB player makes, but you only find estimates on what UFC fighters take home.

I don't think they are underpaid at all. Just why all the secrecy?



Because when the next fighters contract is up they don't want him saying but look your paying this guy "x" so I deserve at least "y".

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 that guy knows a lot about boxing money

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Fertitta also claimed the UFC paid close to 50% of its total revenue to it's fighters.

Source at the 13 minute mark- http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma.cfm?go=forum_framed.frame&thread=1940431&page=1

_____________________________________________________________

Let's do the math on that though for UFC 141:

Fighter payout/U.F.C. revenue (not even including merchandise sales, sponsers, advertising revenue, ect.)= % of revenue paid to fighters

The math looks like this


$7,368,428/$38,060,000= 19% revenue to fighter


I REPEAT 19% REVENUE TO FIGHTERS NOT 50%

_________________________________________________________


HERE ARE THE NUMBERS WITH THEIR SOURCES



ppv sales = 800,000 @ $44.95 = $35,960,000 revenue

(source- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-per-view)

Live gate revenue= $3,100,000

(source- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_141)

Fighter pay= $7,368,428

$1,321,714.28 total reported pay, lets double that number to add in discretionary bonus' and we get:

$2,643,428.56 then add in fight night bonus' which totaled $225,000 and ppv cut's for Brock and Alistair which totaled around $4,500,000 and we get a total fighter payout of $7,368,428

(Source- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_141)

Alistair Overeem: $385,714.28 (includes $121,428.57 win bonus) def. Brock Lesnar: $400,000

Nate Diaz: $74,000 (includes $37,000 win bonus) def. Donald Cerrone: $30,000

Johny Hendricks: $52,000 (includes $26,000 win bonus) def. Jon Fitch: $60,000

Alexander Gustafsson: $32,000 (includes $16,000 win bonus) def. Vladimir Matyushenko: $40,000

Jim Hettes: $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus) def. Nam Phan: $8,000

Ross Pearson: $40,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus) def. Junior Assuncao: $8,000

Danny Castillo: $38,000 (includes $19,000 win bonus) def. Anthony Njokuani: $12,000

Dong Hyun Kim: $82,000 (includes $41,000 win bonus) def. Sean Pierson: $8,000

Jacob Volkmann: $32,000 (includes $16,000 win bonus) def. Efrain Escudero: $10,000

Diego Nunes: $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus) def. Manny Gamburyan: $18,000


_____________________________________________________________







19% IS PRETTY FAR OFF FROM THW 50% HE TOLD ESPN


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Well u can cut the ppv $$$ in half for a start,ppv company takes around half,


And obv the whole event thing incurs some expenses. Phone Post

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IROCK - Well u can cut the ppv $$$ in half for a start,ppv company takes around half

And obv the whole event thing incurs some expenses.


1)First of all, the numbers in question are revenue not profit. You do not add in expenses whjen figuring revenue.

2)Second of all you do not cut the ppv $$$ in haldf when figuring revenue.

Case in point:

"In September, Mayweather-Ortiz sold 1.25 million pay-per-view units and generated $78.44 million in revenue. In November, the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez bout did 1.5 million pay-per-view buys. Though no official revenue number was announced, it was well over $70 million."

-Lorenzo Fertitta

You do the math
$78.44 million in revenue / 1.25 million ppv units sold = $62 price

$62 is not half of what the ppv cost the customer.

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IROCK - Well u can cut the ppv $$$ in half for a start,ppv company takes around half,<br><br><br>And obv the whole event thing incurs some expenses. <img src="/images/phone/apple.png" alt="Phone Post" border="0" style="vertical-align:middle;"/>


Exactly, this guy has no idea what he is talking about. Only the UFC knows total revenue. PPV buy does not equal revenue, live gate does not equal revenue. The venue gets the live gate, and based on the deal the UFC gets a portion. The cable and dish companies get the PPV revenues, and the UFC gets a portion of that. The UFC then pays all sorts of licensing fees, insurance and numerous other costs that are incurred that get subtracted from the revenue. Then the government comes and takes a cut of the earnings at the end. People need to work in an actual company or better yet run a company to understand earnings, revenues and expenses.

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FOX N00B - 
IROCK - Well u can cut the ppv $$$ in half for a start,ppv company takes around half,<br><br><br>And obv the whole event thing incurs some expenses. <img src="/images/phone/apple.png" alt="Phone Post" border="0" style="vertical-align:middle;"/>


Exactly, this guy has no idea what he is talking about. Only the UFC knows total revenue. PPV buy does not equal revenue, live gate does not equal revenue. The venue gets the live gate, and based on the deal the UFC gets a portion. The cable and dish companies get the PPV revenues, and the UFC gets a portion of that. The UFC then pays all sorts of licensing fees, insurance and numerous other costs that are incurred that get subtracted from the revenue. Then the government comes and takes a cut of the earnings at the end. People need to work in an actual company or better yet run a company to understand earnings, revenues and expenses.


It's you who does not know what you are talking about if you think IROCK is correct.

You don't take half of ppv sales out and you don't add in expenses to figure revenue.

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Why not? Do you know the contract that the UFC has in place with venues and PPV providers? No. Therefore, you do not know their pay structure. I can guarantee you this. The UFC does not get the gate and the PPV directly as revenue, and then pay the venue and the PPV providers. That is a fact. Their revenue comes from when they actually get paid by the venue and the PPV provider.

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Calhoon, you're obviously right on the total revenue generated for the event, but on the UFC books, they would record their portion (~50%, give or take) of the revenue. I guess it depends how you'd want to spin the data. For Fertitta, he wants to increase that % to show that he's paying out more, for UFC detractors, they'd want to include every fucking penny in order to show how shitty they treat the fighters.

I think Fertitta was comparing his % to the 50% that the teams in the NFL/MLB/NBA pay to their players. Does anyone know what revenue numbers they're using? Is it the total revenue earned by the networks, teams, etc.? Or is it just the revenue that the team receives?

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jdb2414 - Calhoon, you're obviously right on the total revenue generated for the event, but on the UFC books, they would record their portion (~50%, give or take) of the revenue. I guess it depends how you'd want to spin the data. For Fertitta, he wants to increase that % to show that he's paying out more, for UFC detractors, they'd want to include every fucking penny in order to show how shitty they treat the fighters.

I think Fertitta was comparing his % to the 50% that the teams in the NFL/MLB/NBA pay to their players. Does anyone know what revenue numbers they're using? Is it the total revenue earned by the networks, teams, etc.? Or is it just the revenue that the team receives?


Again, take a look for yourself on how Fertitta figures revenue of ppv sales.

"In September, Mayweather-Ortiz sold 1.25 million pay-per-view units and generated $78.44 million in revenue."

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How can u call money the UFC never receive, (ie.the ppv company's cut),UFC revenue?

I know u did a lot of ciphering here Jethro,
But ur coming at it with skewed numbers. Phone Post