If MMA is gaining ground on boxing in terms of popularity how do they justify the very low purses?

Question

I was looking at the amount they paid the UFC 64 main event fighter and it was 50K! Can you imagine a top boxer fighting for 50K that would be downright laughable. Oscar would kill himself if he made 50K for a fight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_64

So why are the promoters low balling the MMA fighters if the sport is doing so well. All those PPV's and the most they could come up with is 50K. Even assuming that is a low ball figure and the top fighters like Liddell make 500K that is still nowhere near someone like Oscar, Jones Jr. or Hatton.

Answer 1

It's starting to gain a little depending on the quality fighter. You can see how much the UFC paid each fighter for their fights for the 2006 year on Sherdog.com. Chuck Liddell was the highest paid regular fighter for UFC( He made 250,000 for beating Couture, Couture made 200,000) while Tim Sylvia made 110,000 for beating Andre. The highest paid fighter for UFC in 2006 was Royce Gracie making 400,000 for losing to Matt Hughes. Cro Cop however just signed for a million dollar signing bonus plus 1.5 mil per fight for 2 fights. So it is catching up in the UFC for fighters that are world class like Cro Cop.

Answer 2

First to clear things up on the money part, MMA dont rake in as much money as boxing does and if it did dont you think agents who represent MMA fighters would have requested more money in their contracts? Boxing is a mllion dollar industry while MMA is not quite there YET......

Reason why boxing gets more money is it has more history than MMA. Boxing has been around for decades while MMA has been around about 20 or fewer years. Also, boxers have no choice but to throw punches and stand for 10 or 12 three minute rounds, which is very tough to do. MMA rarely standup and slug it out the entire fight compared to pro boxing, and if they do stand they watch and pick their punches becasue of the fear of beng knockout by those small gloves. When MMA fighters get tired, they go to the ground or clinch. Boxing skills are straight foward which means you are either great with power, speed, or what else, while MMA can vary in the different martial arts that are in the sport which means you can have a wrestler fighting a muay thai fight. Can't compare apples to oranges. Another thing is that boxing has 8-10 ounce gloves which are quite heavy and knocking someone out in a second is somewhat hard to do for the exception of a few cases, so both fighters go through the same punishment. MMA on the other hand has 4 ounce glove which makes it very easy for a knockout and most MMA fight dont last the entire bout they are scheduled for. If a MMA fight was paid 50 million, then chances are that it's going to end in a few minutes especially when you have fighters like wanderlei silva and chuck liddell. Oscar de la hoya and floyd mayweather are entertainers and they will never ko each other until after the 5th round because both are good fighters and both have the endurance to hang in there while getting hammered. MMA fights is much shorter and what fun is it to watch a fight that last 30 seconds when you can watch it for a few rounds of non stop action and then look for the ko.

Also, boxing has more viewers on pay per view and more sponsors than mma. Im more of a MMA pride and ufc fan these days though.......

Answer 3

For a couple of reasons I think. Age wise and demographically MMA appeals to the younger and middle age generations who you have more people watching or viewing as well as taking an interest in than more traditional sports. The older generation favors the older more traditional sports which boxing is one of. At the same time there have been very few boxers that have captured the interest and hearts of the younger generation in boxing like what you had twenty and thirty years ago with guys like Duran, Leonard, Hearns, Hagler to name just a few. I will add that if you had a MMA fighter of some note like Silva change over to boxing and the larger money that it still can generate for fighters like him then that could re-spark some interest in boxing. I half expect him to given the fact that in MMA he fights for a half mil but if he was to fight in boxing he would get considerably more. He is obviously bored where he is now and I think the greater money and the challenge to be the first fighter to hold a world champion in both boxing and MMA is luring him and he is considering it. Boxing is still king with regards to the big money that it pays out to certain fighters but that group is shrinking and so is the supply of fighters that can generate that kind of interest and following as well as the number of fighters in general. Over the last ten years a lot of boxing gyms have closed and inner city youth look to other sports like basketball, football and baseball now as a way to better things. This along with MMA is drawing those that want to fight away from boxing. So I think MMA has replaced boxing in popularity but not in money or revenue quite yet. Give it time though as I think it will unless you have someone like Silva make the transition and even then it will only delay its decline temporarily I think.

Answer 4

In my opinion MMA has already surpassed boxing from a popularity standpoint. The PPV numbers tell that story all too well.

And as far as the fighters purse goes its not totally obscured. For example Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz take in larger fight purses because they are bigger draws. As for boxing the only big draws they have left are De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Boxing has also been around for much longer and is much more established than MMA at this point. But give it sometime, MMA is a very young up and coming sport, in a few years we will see tremendous growth with MMA.

Answer 5

Just goes to show you how many idiots are out there. What would you rather watch, 8 to 10 MMA fights on a Pride or UFC card or some fixed Don King promotion for 55 bucks? If you said the Don King I can't help you and I hope you get screwed. People just need to stop contributing to boxing and go the MMA route, it's the future and far more superior. That way they can pay them a little better and they don't have to get choked unconscious for 10k. The problem is with boxing they make so much money they are afraid to put their reputation on the line and fight. So it takes years for these guys to put a good fight on because there to busy protecting themselves from a career breaking defeat. I'm done with boxing.

Answer 6

Sorry Mike4 you were doing good with your answer, but made a few incorrect statements. MMA fighters don't clinch or go to the ground when they are tired. Clinching and kneeing your opponent in the ribs is a tactic, same goes for taking your opponent to the ground. Does a wrestler take a person to the ground because he is tired? I think not. Also you stated that boxing has bigger pay per view buys than boxing. This is incorrect again. The UFC pay per views have been surpassing boxing pay per views for a while now.

Answer 7

MMA is still new to Americans. Once the sponsers come in with the big bucks the fighters will make more.

I personally hope MMA does not end up all commercialized like boxing.

Answer 8

because most fighters get money from the people they sponsor not the actual prize purse if they win the 50k was just the purse not the full amount the fighter got from the fight

Answer 9

The UFC has been paying more and more to the fighters and all the organizations that tried to shell out boxing dollars are no longer in existence.

Answer 10

just give them a little bit more time.

however.. I do think that maybe for the MMA fighters it isn't as much about the moneyas in boxing.