So apparently the UFC wants to be like major sports organizations (NFL, NBA) and have one major sponsor on all fighter apparel. That's great. Then act like other sports, keep ALL sponsor money, but pay your fighters/atheltes a fair wage.
No one says the NFL should pay their fighters a low amount because they will get "X amount" from Nike. Nike pays the NFL $200M/year and then NFL teams pay the players very well. Let the UFC negotiate whatever they want with Reebok, take that money, all FOX money, PPV revenue, gates, etc...and PAY THE FIGHTERS!!
UFC 182 did 800K PPV buys. Fighter payout was $1.3M. Pacquiao vs Bradley did 800K PPV buys. Fighter payout was over $27M. Factor in PPV percentage bonus to Jones, OTN bonuses, and "backroom" bonuses, they MAYBE paid out $4M. So $27M vs $4M for the same number of PPV buys and same PPV price. The UFC could have paid all 22 fighters an extra $100K that night, so an extra $2.2M, and the total payout would have been $6.6M. Still over $20M less than the boxing payout was, but if every fighter made $108K per fight minimum, and mid level fighters made $140K - 300K/fight, they could get by easily annually and the UFC would still rake in insane amounts of money.
Pay your fighters Zuffa!
