Dana White has a point when he says he’s not going to increase fighter pay in the UFC.
Not because it’s a prudent fiscal move or because his contractors get a fair wage — they don’t. But without the threat of unionization in mixed martial arts or a legit contender to the UFC throne, there’s no real need for him to do anything but minor tweaks.
But Shane Burgos leaving the company? That could be a warning shot.
Burgos is a 31-year-old, 15-3 featherweight who’d risen to top 15 status in one of the UFC’s most competitive divisions. He’d won “Fight of the Night” honors in two of his last three bouts. And he’s now a member of the Professional Fight League, a UFC competitor that promises $1 million to the winner of its annual eight-person tournaments. The PFL typically offers six-figure payouts to higher profile veterans like Burgos just for showing up.
Burgos fully understands the financial ramifications of betting on himself in a lesser organization. Here’s what he told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour:
“When it’s all said and done after the first season — obviously, I plan on winning — I’ll be a multi-millionaire,” Burgos said.
Asked how many UFC fight salaries it would take to match what he’ll make for one PFL fight, Burgos answered, “Multiple.”
The PFL jumped on an opportunity to throw White’s words back in his face. After failing to sign Burgos years ago, the company took the UFC president’s own words and turned them into leverage.
“It’s a problem,” White told Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole. “Basically, there were some mistakes that were made here, some [expletive] that … he should have still been here. I respect him very much and I wish him the best. A hundred percent [mistakes were made on the UFC side]. A hundred percent. Big mistakes were made over here.”
Burgos seized his shot and now will likely earn significantly more than he would have in the UFC. Though he’ll be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, he’ll still have a solid slate of competition in former champion Lance Palmer and former NCAA wrestling champion Bubba Jenkins. If that slate underwhelms him, the PFL makes up for it in cash; Palmer earned more than $2 million in 2018 and 2019 alone by winning back-to-back featherweight tournaments.
But here’s the problem; at the moment, this is only a viable solution for a handful of fighters. Leaving the UFC with momentum as a free agent means turning down the financial security of contract extensions. It means hoping you can finish up your current deal on a winning streak that makes you attractive to promoters. The PFL can’t afford to over-extend itself to bring in prized fighters, either. There’s a graveyard of would-be UFC competitors littered with the corpses of failed companies like Affliction and EliteXC who over-promised and under-delivered.
That makes this a limited threat to White’s assertion the 80/20 revenue split between the UFC and its fighters won’t change while he’s in charge. Only so many fighters will even have the opportunity to make a move like Burgos.
Despite the PFL’s rise, the gulf between the two companies remains massive. The UFC has faced this challenge before. It remains the king despite all the assassination attempts — some legitimate, most feeble — that have come up over the past two decades.
That makes Burgos’ departure a “mistake” that may not change anything in the long run. The UFC loves White because he’s its Roger Goodell; a lightning rod that absorbs all the criticism that should be lobbied at the rest of the ownership group that’s eschewed the 50/50ish revenue splits common in America’s other major sports leagues.
Unless Burgos is finally the crack that breaks the dam — and it doesn’t appear that way — White will recover after a brief setback. That means his fighters’ pay will remain locked into meager show purses, an undervalued sponsorship deal and in arbitrary bonuses after the fact.
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