UFC president Dana White has long been under fire over how he pays the fighters in the UFC. Of particular chagrin to the naysayers is the comparison between the amount professional boxers are making compared to the UFC roster. On the Pivot Podcast, White countered that his fighters aren’t underpaid: it’s the boxers who are making too much.
“There’s always gonna be head butting. Do you make enough money? Do you? I want to meet that guy that goes, ‘Oh, I’m good. I make plenty of money. I don’t need another dime.’ You’re never going to meet that guy. It’s never going to happen. Everybody wants more money. And one of the big problems with boxing too, is that all those f****** guys are overpaid, and every time they put on a fight, it’s a going-out-of-business sale. We’re just trying to get as much f****** money as we can from you guys, and then we’re out of here. We’ll see you in three years.
Dana White Blasts Boxing Pay: “‘All those f****** guys are overpaid’
You can’t build a league like that. You can’t build a sport. You can’t have 750 fighters under contract, making money, feeding their families every year, with that kind of mentality. It doesn’t work. You have to run a business.”
Running a business is exactly what Dana White has accomplished, with the UFC regularly yielding record-breaking profits. Whether that has trickled down to the fighters is another story, but White insists that his company’s pay structure is working just fine the way it is.
“What we did is, we built a business model where, if you’re the champion, you share in the pay-per-view revenue. If you’re the guy headlining the card, or there’s been some special occasions where we know you’re bringing in the money, too, and you’re a big draw so you, too, get to share in the pay-per-view revenue. You eat what you kill.
The truth is, you get some of these guys that — you can walk in and say, ‘I want $30 million dollars.’ OK, based on what? I do too. Give me $30 million. We all want $30 million, but based on what?
And you’re never going to have the guys on the other side worrying about the business of the sport. Because this isn’t a team sport.
In this sport here, it’s about me. ‘I’m the biggest f****** star here. I knocked out 30 people. I did this, I did that. I want as much money as I can get, and I really don’t give a s*** about anybody else, including you, the boss that runs the business. I don’t care about this whole business. It’s about me.’
Do you agree with Dana White, or is he wrong? Let us know in the comments.
