Blood-Spattered Cash Machines

Sports are known for their lucrative money based operations. After all, they’re not in the business for “the love of the game” anymore. Superstar athletes are being paid millions and millions of dollars for what they do best. Floyd Mayweather made at least $32 million for a single fight in 2013. Football star Tom Brady will make upwards of $55 million for his upcoming seasons. Then of course we can’t forget out about the LA Angels, Albert Pujols, that will make $240 million over his 10 year contract! This is only taking into consideration the athletes, there are outstanding numbers behind the net worth of the NFL, NBA, and other professional sport leagues.

Although, no one seems to know how much UFC fighters are making or how well the UFC organization is doing in general. The answer is, the UFC is doing incredibly well, and they’re only getting better with age. UFC has strangely guarded their finance numbers compared to other professional sport leagues, but after a little digging there’s some surprising facts.

In 2001 the UFC was hardly worth $2 million when the Fertittas bought the organization. Fast forward a single decade later and you’re looking at one of the fasting growing poHERE. From a certain standpoint, it’s hard to place a price tag on someone that’s entering the “lion’s den” for a living. Certainly even harder when the possibility of a knee or elbow could leave you in a wheelchair, a coma, or even dead on the mats. Several studies have estimated that lower tier UFC athletes could only be making as little as $70,000 a year for their efforts.

werhouses in the entire sports industry, and a heads up, the brake line seems to be broken.  Today the UFC is valued well over the billion dollar mark and is estimated to make up of 90% of the total MMA industry. Superstars in the UFC are enjoying the growth as well. Fighter George St-Pierre makes an estimated $5-6 million every time he steps into the octagon. However, this does not mean that every UFC athlete feels like they’re being paid fairly as you can see

The UFC does business a little differently than other sport organizations. Unlike other professional organization that have laws that protect their athletes, the UFC has laws that support no such thing. Managers, trainers and the athletes have no say in what minimums or extremes in the MMA financial world. This bloody business doesn’t permanently bond itself to other companies to ensure financial security either. Most of their revenue is made from pay-per-view events drawing millions and millions of dollars to the company while other TV promoters like SPIKE and The Ultimate Fighter also engage in the pay-per-view events.

More UFC statistics can be found HERE and HERE.