With all the talk of fighter pay and rights, the one shining beacon of hope that could be viewed as a milestone event for fighters fell flat on its $335 million face. The UFC (TKO Endeavour) has settled its class-action lawsuit and will continue as if nothing happened. A small price to pay for what could be called a total monopoly over the MMA market. The Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association were the ones pursuing the class-action suit but ultimately settled for a sum that many are calling woefully inadequate. The one thing the UFC was trying very hard to avoid was the case going to trial which would have forced the promotion to release scathing and damning information about how it does business.
The original suit was filed in 2014 and consolidated into one massive class action suit in 2015 with various other lawsuits coming together to try and enact systemic change in the UFC. Their argument was simple. The UFC is a monopsony that manipulates the market to keep fighters locked in long-term, iron-clad contracts. It also does not help that the revenue-sharing model of the UFC is looked at as one of the lowest in professional sports. Fighters receive about 18 to 20% of the revenue and this is spread across a roster of almost 600 fighters. In 2023, the UFC netted an annual revenue of $1.3 billion. You do the math there. The argument could be made that the lion’s share of promotion is done by the UFC but even if it isn’t a 50/50 split; does a 30-35% split not sound like a reasonable compromise?
So what does this mean for fighters? Well, to put it bluntly, this is the worst-case scenario they’re in right now. Without a real union and government oversight and regulation, the UFC is now free to run its business as it sees fit. If anything it just goes to show that fighters are willing to compromise on important and systemic issues for a paltry payout. The fact that fighters are now signing away their opportunity to even join another class-action lawsuit against the UFC bodes grim for the future. It’s a sad day for fighters and it’s no different for anyone looking to compete with the UFC. With the state of the PFL and Bellator up in the air, at the moment, there are no real competitors to the UFC. The days of Cage Rage, King of the Cage, Elite XC, and Strikeforce are over. At best, as a new promoter, you’ll be a feeder league to the UFC and maybe, if you’re lucky, get a Fight Pass deal.
Where do we go from here? For fight fans, we get to enjoy the UFC product, albeit a watered-down version of the past while the fighters putting their lives on the line are severely underpaid. In the end, the fighters have no one to blame but themselves. They could have held out and fought the good fight to enact serious and widespread change in an industry ruled by the UFC but alas, not everyone is cut out to fight the good fight and it only took the UFC a paltry sum of $335 million to prove it.
