UFC Fighters Are Underpaid

I've written many UFC articles lately. The only thing booming faster than the amount of articles I've written on the UFC is the UFC's popularity and the money the UFC is raking in. The UFC is making a boatload of money all around, except for the fighters.

Right now the UFC fighters are not making as much money as they should. In April of 2005 the UFC had two of their most popular fighters Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell face each other. According to some reports the PPV had 280,000 buys at $34.95 each. That makes the show worth $9.8 million dollars. Chuck Liddell was only paid $140,000 and Randy Couture was paid $150,000. That means the main event fighters, the main reason people tuned in, got about three percent of the money.

In February the UFC held the third meeting between Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell. This time the PPV did 410,00 buys at $39.95 each, which comes out to $16.34 million. In the rematch Randy Couture got $225,000 and Chuck Liddell got $250,000. Again this comes out to about three percent. The entire card as a whole was paid $656,000, which is four percent of the earnings.

I know there are some people shaking their heads right now saying I'm crazy. They have $250,000 what more could they want? I'd kill for $250,00! If that is all you have to say then don't bother commenting because I'm not buying it. If the UFC is making $16.34 million for one show then the top draw should be making more than $250,000. You might think it's crazy that the athletes even get $656,000 combined but it's more ridiculous that the people not fighting made $15.6 million. Ok, so they didn't get all of that, there is the cost of the venue, production, marketing, etc, but that all comes out to about $5 million. So the non-fighters are still making $10.6 million, seventeen times more than the fighters are.