The specific terms of a proposed settlement between Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and fighters in the big “Le vs. Zuffa” antitrust case are out, and while there will be no big changes to the way UFC does business as a result, several fighters are going to make a little money.
Some are going to make a lot. And then there’s Conor McGregor, who stands to make millions.
Details of the settlement were broken down in a special two-part podcast by reporter John Nash, who has been covering the monopsony case for years. While the agreement still needs to be accepted by a judge, all signs point toward fighters receiving a $335 million settlement from UFC. The lawyers who worked on behalf of fighters in this case since 2014 are asking for $120 million, which leaves $215 million to be distributed amongst qualifying fighters.
How much a fighter will make depends on when he fought for the promotion. For example, 75 percent of that $215 million goes to fighters who competed between 2010 to 2017 — the time period covered in the original “Le vs. Zuffa” case. The other 25 percent covers fighters after 2017 that didn’t sign a UFC contract that waives their ability to participate in class action lawsuits.
The minimum settlement amount any qualifying fighter will earn is $8,000. From there, fighters get paid based off what they made during the class period. So, the more they made at the time, the more they’re getting paid in this settlement.
And that’s good news for McGregor.
“Conor McGregor made $27 million during the Le class period from 2010 to 2017,” Nash explained. “We know that because the the trial revealed that. So, that $27 million would be about 4.85 percent of the total earnings paid out [by UFC] in compensation during the lead class period. So, that means he’d get 4.85 percent of $129 million — about $6 million would be going to him.”
That’s all well and good for McGregor, who is quickly approaching billionaire status with his whiskey brand. But, what about your favorite fighters from 2010 to 2017 who actually need the money?
“An easy way [to calculate] is to combine all your income you made during the Le period as a fighter, and take 23 percent of that,” Nash said. “That should be how much your compensation will be.”
So, if a fighter made $1 million in UFC during that period, he or she is looking at roughly $230,000 in settlement money from UFC. That’s a decent chunk of change, and it only took the fighters 10 years and more than $100 million in legal fees to get.
Well deserved.
“An easy way [to calculate] is to combine all your income you made during the Le period as a fighter, and take 23 percent of that,” Nash said. “That should be how much your compensation will be.”
So, if a fighter made $1 million in UFC during that period, he or she is looking at roughly $230,000 in settlement money from UFC. That’s a decent chunk of change, and it only took the fighters 10 years and more than $100 million in legal fees to get.
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I’m no “Math-ologist” but I think that $100 million in legal fees is going to need to be recouped. So maybe more like:
(Earnings X .23) X .60 (40% legal fees) X .70 (30% taxes) = settlement payout take home
Fighter $1 million
$230,000 x legal fees .60 =$138,000 x .70 tax = $96,600 take home
And then if you are a foreign fighter, add all those taxes
What a wild couple of weeks Conor McGregor has had. “The Notorious” missed out on a multi-million dollar fight purse when he was forced to pull out of UFC 303 with a broken toe. But he made a decent chunk of those lost earnings back through several shrewd big-money bets on MMA and soccer.
Mystic Mac banked a million dollars off Nate Diaz beating Jorge Masvidal, and then won two more million dollar bets on Spain winning the Euros and Argentina winning Copa. If he continues to be lucky, a U.S. judge will sign off this week on a $335 million UFC antitrust settlement deal that will pay him around $7 million in illegally suppressed wages.
That’s more than any other fighter on the roster will get, but McGregor is still being massively underpaid. Because of a legally questionable arbitration clause added to his contract, he’s only receiving extra compensation for his fights from 2014-2017. The proposed settlement maths out to roughly 20% of his total UFC earnings during that period.
For the period from 2017 to 2020, when he fought Floyd Mayweather, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and Donald Cerrone? He will only be eligible for a flat fee of $3000.
That’s because sometime between those years, the UFC added an arbitration clause to their contracts that bars fighters from participating in class action lawsuits. The result: just 10% of the $215 million left over after lawyers take their cut is making it to fighters in the 2017-2020 class — the lucky ones who never signed away their legal rights. More than half will get three grand and that’s basically it.
The situation is so rough that the judge overseeing the case has suggested he may not approve the settlement due to how little some are getting in money and injunctive relief. That would force the case to a jury trial, where all twelve jurors would have to agree with fighters that the UFC used monopsony power to keep pay down.
Experts during pre-trail hearings presented compelling evidence that UFC athletes got bilked out of $1.6 billion in wages, and treble damages could push the punishment for that up to $4.8 billion. So it’s big risk, big reward … and big waits, because even a win for the fighters would be appealed, probably all the way up to the Supreme Court.
But if Conor McGregor wants to, he could do the funniest thing ever and opt out of the 2017-2020 class so he can use that arbitration clause in his favor.
“It would cost him a lot of money,” UFC Antitrust expert John Nash said in a recent podcast. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps even millions. Because you’d have to hire your own experts and do all the analysis and stuff the antitrust trial did again. But go into arbitration, because truthfully, someone like McGregor, I think you could realistically make an argument that he’s owed $100 million by the UFC.”
“If you’re really under a waiver, Conor McGregor and fighters like him, the very top guys — it’s it’s not financially possible for most fighters to do this. But for the very top guys, I would think about opting out of the [2017-2020] class and going into arbitration.”
Would McGregor do that to his friends and business partners at the UFC? It’d be a long hard fight that would derail the biggest comeback in sports history. But if the UFC tries to hang him out to dry with two fights left on his contract? Well, there’s always the nuclear option.
Tbh i think its way more
100mil is peanuts
legal fee has already been taken out of the total