Low fighter salaries have been one of the main complaints against the UFC in recent years. This is what former fighters, fans and boxing bloggers like Jake Paul are talking about, who usually declares a media war on Dana White and criticizes him for the financial issue at every opportunity. Now the promotion continues with a lawsuit for hundreds of millions in a monopoly case, which also directly touches on the issue of low fees.
But this does not in any way prevent UFC from organizing powerful events and breaking records in terms of ticket revenue. And now the promotion is one step away from the next historic event – UFC 306, which will take place in the Sphere. The tournament will be very expensive, as Dana White also spoke about. Back in June the amount of expenses for holding the event exceeded $16 million, and now it has increased to $20 million. The question is: will there be huge fees for the grandiose spectacle? Most likely not.
Dana Blanco
Photo: Fake Images
The main star of the tournament is Sean O’Malley. The promotion loves him very much, admires him, calls him almost the second coming of Conor McGregor and obviously plans to promote the star status of the bantamweight champion. Sugar has been performing under the auspices of the promotion since 2017, and only two fights were enough for him to convince the league’s management of his own uniqueness. An important indicator is that since 2018, Sean has been fighting exclusively in numbered tournaments, and only once was he not on the main card. And he was not even prevented from being disqualified for ostarine in an anti-doping test.
And accordingly, O’Malley’s fee is constantly increasing with each fight. Already in his second fight in the UFC he earned about $100 thousand (including bonuses) and subsequently only fell below this level once – in a lost fight with Marlon Vera. Since 2021 and since the fight against Raulian Paiva, O’Malley’s base fee has always been above $100 thousand for the fight with Petr Yan, taking into account the bonus for the victory and the bonus for the best fight of the night, Sean. According to various sources, he received $356 thousand, and then O’Malley claimed that he did not receive a salary increase before this fight.
O’Malley is quickly becoming a superstar:
O’Malley will save UFC 306. Sugar is the future of the best promotion in the world
But in the title fight with Aljamain Sterling, Sugar earned over $1.1 million, of which $500,000 was the base fee. As champion, Sean’s earnings tripled. It should be remembered that champions only get a base fee (increased, of course) and no win bonus, as they receive a percentage of PPV sales. So, it was reported that O’Malley’s first title defense earned him $1.5 million in base pay and about $800,000 more, taking into account PPV and a bonus for the best performance of the night. Therefore, Sean will not go below these $1.5 million in the next tournament either. Speaking of $50,000 bonuses, O’Malley received them nine times in 12 fights. That is, in total I earned $450,000 from bonuses alone.
Overall, this is, of course, not so little. But it is very far from the original Conor in terms of his fees. Despite the fact that McGregor has only 14 fights under the auspices of the promotion, and O’Malley only two less. That is, the rate of growth of Sugar’s earnings is significantly lower. Obviously, Notorious received many times more. Several years ago, O’Malley already publicly criticized the low fees and hinted that he would consider not only the option of extending his contract with the UFC, but also offers from other leagues. At that time, Sean believed that he deserved a fee of $500,000.
Conor McGregor
Photo: Fake Images
But if we compare O’Malley’s money with Dvalishvili’s fee, then we have a champion in space. Merab, despite a 10-fight winning streak, earns just over $100,000 in base salary. That is, he is now at the level of O’Malley, when he was not even in the top 15. Significant difference. For his last two fights with former champions Petr Yan and Henry Cejudo, Dvalishvili earned just over $200,000, including bonuses for victories. The title fight with O’Malley, of course, is a real gift for the Georgian fighter from a financial point of view – the fee will definitely be higher, and, perhaps, twice as much, plus he will receive a small share of the PPV, and the expectations from UFC 306 are huge.
In general, Merab’s situation is very common in the UFC. The promotion is guided by the principle “why pay more if you don’t have to pay?” and of course, the fighter’s popularity has a very strong influence. Sean O’Malley has a huge fan base, but what does Merab have to offer? He has greatly improved his social media in recent years, but this is still not enough – the name Dvalishvili on the poster is unlikely to attract fans, but in combination with the name O’Malley it does.
Merab already has many strange stories:
“This guy is making fun of me.” Dvalishvili is the main UFC meme
Merab, even as a contender on a record-breaking winning streak, is likely to make less than Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko, who fight in the evening’s co-main event. Shevchenko has been a dominant champion in the recent past with a strong streak of title defenses. Even in the loss to Grasso at UFC 285, Valentina earned just over $1.1 million, and in the rematch her fee was over $500,000, which was more than the champion’s — Grasso received a base fee of $392,000 in the rematch, and the trilogy will likely earn more.
These are far from outstanding numbers, especially if we look at boxing and how top stars make money there. And it is no coincidence that O’Malley, proclaimed champion after the fight with Sterling, once again criticised the fees: “Of course, it all depends on the goals. My goal is to become a multimillionaire. I want to make a lot of money. You can make a lot of money in the UFC without talking nonsense. But for that you will need to win 5,000 fights in a row. I paid more taxes than last year for my fight with Sterling. I made a lot of money fighting, but through social media I made three times as much. I made three times as much on social media as I did in fights. But of course, it all depends on the goals that fighters set for themselves.”
Sean O’Malley
Photo: Fake Images
Fees are one area that the UFC will be constantly criticized for. Fighter payouts, if they are increasing, are doing so very slowly. From the outside it looks as if it is marking time. However, the promotion makes the most of its reputation and remains essentially unique in its field because no other organization makes money like the UFC does. Therefore, fighters have to either put up with the current situation or leave.
