Posted in: Opinion, Paramount+, Sports, TV, TV | Tagged: opinion, paramount, tko, ufc

UFC, TKO Need To Do The Right Thing and Share With Their Fighters

TKO and the UFC signed one of the richest broadcast rights deals in sports. It's time to do the right thing and share with their fighters.

UFC and TKO Group shocked the world this week by selling the broadcast rights to all UFC live events, around 43 a year total, to Paramount. It is a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal, one of the most lucrative rights deals in sports. While fans and media focused on many aspects of the deal, like how the company is largely abandoning the PPV model, the first thought that went through my head was, "Well, what about the fighters themselves?"

UFC Needs To Take Care Of The People Who Actually Matter To The Brand

It is no secret that the UFC does not exactly pay its fighters well. The company uses a show/win model for most of its roster, meaning that a fighter is guaranteed a show fee for just getting into the Octagon, and another fee if they win. Most ground-level fighters, your prospects and up-and-comers, get around $12,000/$12,000 show/win. There are other ways to make money, as the company offers bonuses for fight of the night and performance bonuses of up to $50,000. Higher-tier fighters make more, of course, but not near what value they bring to the company itself when you factor in PPV buys, gate, merch, and site fees that the cities that host the events pay the UFC and TKO. The company recently settled a lawsuit to the tune of $375 million for fighters to split for being underpaid from 2010 to 2016. So, this is not a secret. The company was sold to Endevor in 2016 for $4 billion. They merged with WWE to form TKO Group in 2023 and were then valued at $21 billion. The annual deal that the UFC was under with ESPN paid them around $500 million a year. This new Paramount deal will put that number at around $1.1 billion annually.

To me, it is a no-brainer. Pay the fighters, and I mean a big, huge chunk. Without them, there is no product to sell. It is high time that these athletes, who literally put their well-being on the line 3-4 times a year, were compensated as they should have always been. Even the champions have to be scratching their heads right now. While they earn more per fight, they were also rewarded for getting to the top of the sport with PPV points, meaning they shared in the revenue from PPV buys. What happens to that, now that everything is on Paramount+ and there is no PPV? Am I saying that they should get half of that $1.1 billion a year? Maybe, but the fighters also do not have a union, so there is not really anyone to fight on their side; they get what TKO and the UFC decide they get. They are considered independent contractors, so the UFC and TKO don't have to change anything. Dana White hinted at a press conference this week that pay would go up, but purposely kept it pretty vague, besides saying that the bonuses will be going up.

They can be the good guys for once and do the right thing. That seems to be a big ask for them these days, so I won't hold my breath.

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