One of the most popular fighters in the UFC, Brock Lesnar, only earned a payday of $400,000 for his octagon match against Frank Mir during the UFC100, and Mir only received $45k.
This payment information is given by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Although individual contracts controlling the external showing of UFC Athletes may be in place, but I think it’s safe to say these contracts probably involve a ton of cash to make the agreements fair for all parties.
These UFC fight deals not only benefit the MMA fight world but big media companies also. Inside details about the UFC ppv totals for each fight have always been tough to dissect due to the fact that subscriber payment totals are tabulated over time from many different media outlets.
Recent reports suggest the buy numbers for UFC 100 were around 1.5 million purchases. The truly conservative number is probably in the ballpark of one million buys.
Even though the exact purchase numbers are not known, when you think about the buy history for Tito Ortiz fights, to suggest a minimum of 425,000 buys is not way off base.
When you add the numbers up, that’s over $19 million for one evening of UFC fights. Let’s not forget that fight promotion costs might only be around 3%. My bottom line of this article is, UFC fighters need and deserve a bigger piece of the money making pie that we MMA fans know and love so much.
I have a strong feeling that very soon we will see a huge UFC star rise up and demand more cash. What do you think?