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Introduction
In March 2011, the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC)
parent company – Zuffa L.L.C. – purchased the UFC’s primary
and only serious MMA promotional competitor – Strikeforce. In
doing so, some have argued Zuffa L.L.C. has cornered the major
MMA market. By essentially eliminating the competition,
high-level MMA fighters are now deprived of options where they
make take their talents and leverage their individual worth.
As the MMA industry in the United States (and to a large
degree globally) currently stands, only those promotions under
the Zuffa banner can pay fighters a substantial amount of
money for participating in a fairly dangerous line of work.
This article will be the first in a series that examines a
sample of fighters’ salaries from both the UFC and Strikeforce
promotions as a means of analyzing the industry before the
merger.
Social Stratification
Social stratification is a sociological concept suggesting
that society is divided into different layers based on wealth,
power, and prestige. Wealth includes the amount of resources
an individual or group holds; this includes financial
resources and social networks that can provide access to
resources. Power is defined as the ability to influence one’s
own life and the lives of others. Prestige refers to the
degree of status one (or a group) holds in society (e.g.,
popularity, respect).
These three components, of course, impact one another. A group
with extensive wealth tends to have more power in influencing
other groups. If one has a low level of prestige, he or she
will have less life chances to acquire a substantial amount of
wealth. A group with very little power will have a difficult
time advocating for greater rights and resources.
Within the MMA industry, those with the most wealth, power,
and prestige are typically promotional owners. They stand at
the top of the socially stratified MMA world. As noted
previously, however, the number of major MMA promotions across
the global landscape is extremely small. Thus one may argue
that as the number of major MMA promotions decreases (or fall
under the same management), the owners of the large MMA
promotions increase their wealth, power, and prestige.
MMA fighters in contrast, generally have less wealth, power,
and prestige than owners. Moreover, there are stratified
levels of wealth, power, and prestige among the fighters.
Certain fighters are more connected to the owners than others,
are more (or less) popular with the fans, and may have better
(or less) resources at their disposal (e.g., an effective
agent or manager).
The prestige and resources a fighter has impacts the amount of
income one can push for on a contract. An important resource
for a fighter is also his or her record. Ostensibly, a lengthy
winning record over quality opponents helps leverage more
money promised for competing in an MMA fight, assuming the
fighter is still in competitive form.
It is a common perception that MMA fighters who make it to the
“big time,” either having competed in the UFC or Strikeforce
promotion, make a substantial income. MMA fighters, however,
only compete at most four times per year, and it is far more
likely that they compete roughly twice per year.
A fighter’s number of competitions each year is contingent
upon numerous variables. A loss may lead to being released
from a promotional contract. It is not uncommon for fighters
to be injured in practice and then need to drop out of a
fight. Fighters may have personal and/or occupational
disagreements with promotional management that influences
fights booked (or more likely, not booked). In short, if a
fighter sits within a low level of the stratified MMA
industry, he or she may get minimal fights per year.
Additionally, fighters’ purses vary immensely, which will be
the focus of this article.
Methodology
MMA fighters do not have collective bargaining rights; they
lack collective, organized power. Consequently, MMA promotions
are not always required to release fighters’ salaries to the
public after competition. However, commissions in some states
require MMA promotions to make fighters’ salaries public. When
this occurs, MMA websites typically report the information.
To collect data for this project, the available information
was gathered from MMA websites for each fighter’s publicly
stated earned income from UFC 100 to UFC 127, as well as a
sample of Strikeforce fighters’ salaries who competed within
the timeframe. Only major fight cards were examined for this
project, essentially meaning cards that were held on a
pay-per-view basis. As noted previously, following UFC 127,
Zuffa L.L.C. purchased the Strikeforce promotion, thereby
putting the UFC and Strikeforce under the same ownership
banner.
For the UFC promotion, a sample of 15 fight cards were
examined, in which 326 payouts (also known as a fighter’s
“purse”) were made to fighters; fighter salaries for 13 UFC
fight cards during this timeframe could not be located. For
the Strikeforce promotion, a sample of 8 fight cards were
examined, with 156 payouts. For Strikeforce, two payouts were
discarded from the analysis (one in which the majority of the
payout was reportedly given to charity and second of which was
paid in advance of the competition), rendering this portion of
the sample to 154.
Within the overall sample, a number of fighters competed more
than once. For instance, Cris “Cyborg” Santos competed on four
out of the eight Strikeforce cards examined; all four of her
payouts were included and each was counted separately within
the overall sample. Likewise as an example in the UFC, Brock
Lesnar competed on three fight cards, and all three of his
payouts were examined separately. The nine women’s matches
were only in the Strikeforce promotion. Thus for women’s
matches, there were a total of 18 payouts to female fighters;
there were 462 payouts to male fighters, for a final sample of
480 payouts (N = 480).
Documentation was made if fighters won or lost their matches,
and if a fighter won his/her match and was given a win bonus,
what that bonus was in a dollar amount. For instance, in one
match Fabricio Werdum was given $25,000 to “show” (i.e.,
compete), and since he won his match, he earned an additional
“win bonus” of $25,000 for a total of $50,000. The $50,000 was
the amount counted in the final analysis. The ratio of a win
bonus relative to the “show” figure can fluctuate depending on
each individual fighter’s ability to leverage a contract with
the promotion. Chuck Liddell, one of the most popular MMA
stars for instance, leveraged a flat rate of $500,000 to
compete without any possible win bonus. Thus, even in losing
his match, he still earned $500,000.
Finally within the UFC sample, “incentive” bonuses were
documented. On each UFC fight card, a “Knockout of the Night”
bonus is given to one fighter, a “Submission of the Night”
bonus is given to one fighter, and a “Fight of the Night”
bonus is given to two fighters. These incentive bonuses ranged
from $50,000 to $100,000. The final value counted for each UFC
fighter payout included incentive bonuses when applicable. On
one card for example, Yoshihiro Akiyama received $40,000 to
“show,” $20,000 to win, and $100,000 for “Fight of the Night,”
earning him a grand total of $160,000 (the amount counted in
analyses). Since he earned “Fight of the Night” by beating
Alan Belcher, Belcher received his $19,000 “show” money and an
additional $100,000 for also being in the “Fight of the
Night.” Belcher’s $119,000 was likewise the amount counted in
analyses.
Results
The sample of payouts ranged from $500,000 at the top to $940
at the bottom. Interestingly, the two fighters who both earned
$500,000 for one fight both lost. James Toney (a boxer turned
MMA fighter for 1 competition to date) earned the top purse
after losing to Randy Couture at UFC 118 via a round one
submission; for beating Toney, Couture earned $250,000 (flat
rate with no win bonus). Chuck Liddell lost at UFC 115 by
second round knockout to Rich Franklin; Franklin earned
$225,000 ($70,000 to show, $70,000 to win, and $85,000 for
“Knockout of the Night”). The lowest purse of $940 was also
given to two fighters, but within the Strikeforce promotion.
The following figures display the measures of central tendency
and variance for the total sample and two separate promotions:
Total Sample (N = 480):
* Mean: $52,703
* Median: $20,000
* Standard Deviation: $84,307
UFC Sample (N = 326)
* Mean: $66,012
* Median: $27,000
* Standard Deviation: $92,164
Strikeforce Sample (N = 154)
* Mean: $24,528
* Median: $4,500
* Standard Deviation: $55,068
When examining data related to income, the mean (mathematical
average) is frequently a deceiving measure because it is
skewed by outliers, such as the $500,000 payouts to Toney and
Liddell. Thus, the mean figures for all three samples, while
informative, do not offer the best measure that typifies MMA
fighters’ purses.
In fact, the standard deviation is an indication of how widely
the cases in each sample are dispersed from the mean. Because
the standard deviation is large for each sample, we can say
with greater clarity that the mean does not accurately
represent on average what MMA fighters in these promotions
earn.
A better indicator of average income data is the median, which
stood at $20,000 for the total sample, $27,000 for the UFC
sample, and $4,500 for the Strikeforce sample. Obviously, by
examining any measure, one can see that UFC fighters tend to
earn more income than Strikeforce fighters, and this
difference is statistically significant at the .001 level
(which is highly significant).
Perhaps, however, a more interesting analysis of this data
entails examining how many fighters fall into different
brackets of income level per fight. The following numbers
represent the number of fighters earning purses within six
income brackets:
* 82 cases (roughly one sixth of the sample) earned $90,000 or
more per fight
* 80 cases in the sample earned between $38,000 and $89,000
* 83 cases in the sample earned between $20,000 and $36,000
* 66 cases in the sample earned between $11,000 – $19,800
* 94 cases in the sample earned between $4,000 and $10,000
* 75 cases in the sample earned $3,940 or less
To put this into perspective, 35.2% of the cases in the sample
earned $10,000 or less per fight; 15.6% of the sample earned
$4,000 or less per fight. On the other end of the extreme,
17.1% of the sample earned $90,000 or more per fight. Only 34
cases (7.1% of the sample) earned $200,000 or more per fight.
Discussion
Within the MMA industry, status clearly plays a major role in
fighters’ ability to leverage resources. James Toney is a
professional athlete with an extensive professional boxing
history, but who had literally no professional MMA experience.
Yet, his boxing status enabled him to leverage a $500,000
payday despite losing very decisively to Randy Couture.
One then must ask, did Toney’s mere participation on a
pay-per-view MMA competition yield significantly increased
pay-per-view buys? If not, this certainly calls into question
the fairness of Toney earning so much to lose so decisively
when other, more capable and experienced MMA fighters produce
more competitive fights.
These data also dispel any assumptions that most MMA fighters
earn lucrative incomes as professional athletes. While it is
true, most MMA fighters augment their competition purses with
income through teaching combat sport classes and possibly by
securing sponsorships, that supplementary income is not
especially large, in particular for those fighters who do not
have high status.
Furthermore, following competitions when fighters have
received their purse money, they typically must distribute
portions of it to their trainers, nutritionists, cornermen,
and whoever else helped them prepare for the competition. One
can see how fast the purse money would disintegrate if a
fighter earned $10,000 or less for a competition (recall, that
is approximately one third of the entire sample).
It is not terribly surprising that MMA fighters do not have
collective bargaining rights, given that the sport is still
less than two decades old. However, it is somewhat surprising
that MMA fighters are not taking initial steps to organize so
that they may secure collective rights in the near future.
As the situation currently stands, fighters are essentially at
odds with one another in what is known as a “split labor
market,” where those who rely on their bodies as labor within
a capitalist system compete with each other to assert their
value. This is commonly seen as a “divide and conquer” system
that privileges management over workers.
The next series of articles relying on this data set will
examine female fighters’ earned income relative to males’, as
well as the impact incentive bonuses have within the UFC
sample.
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