Dana White is a busy man these days, what with the new Zuffa Boxing league kicking off tonight (Fri. Jan 23) and his new NASCAR reality series with Ram Trucks. Let’s not forget Power Slap, his seat on the Meta Board of Directors, and the 500 other things he does.
He’s so busy that he seems to have forgotten to sort out how much more money UFC fighters are going to be making in the new Paramount+ era. He vaguely promised that fighters would be making more following the announcement of the $7.7 billion dollar deal, and specifically said bonuses — which have been locked in at $50,000 for over a decade — would be increasing.
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But on Thursday night at the UFC 324 public press conference, White admitted the UFC hadn’t decided how much those bonuses would be.
“What kind of bonuses is everyone fighting for on Saturday?” a reporter asked during the presser.
“Yeah, I don’t have that number right now,” White replied.
“Will you have it Saturday?” he was pressed.
“Yeah,” he said with a laugh. “No, I don’t have it right now.”
Derrick Lewis threw out a number, suggesting “$324,000.”
Jean Silva also promised to do everything he could to win Fight of the Night if the bonuses were raised.
“You tune up the bonus, boss, and you give us more money, you’ll see two autistic dudes really going at it if you pay us more,” he said.”
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“Deal,” White replied.
What, exactly, he was agreeing to is unclear. White certainly didn’t agree to $324,000 bonuses. At this point we doubt he’s even the one making the decision. Value extractor extraordinaire Mark Shapiro is the one behind the scenes setting ticket prices and splitting Zuffa Boxing gloves up so you have to buy each glove individually for $99.99 a pop.
Maybe TKO execs thought UFC 324 would go down without anyone addressing the bonuses going up, the same way we’re rolling into UFC 324 and UFC 325 without headliners Justin Gaethje and Alexander Volkanovski having their contracts tuned up to reflect the lack of pay-per-view points.
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There’s starting to be some noise from fighters, but they have to be careful. The squeaky wheel gets the grease … or it gets thrown in the trash and replaced by a cheaper, less squeaky wheel.
As fans and media, we play an important role in keeping the pressure on TKO and UFC to actually do what they said they’d do and increase fighter pay. Doubling the bonuses and doubling the starting pay would be a good start. Giving loyal soldiers like Gaethje and Volkanovski pay bumps good enough that they aren’t fuming through fight week would be great too.
At this point it’s almost farcical how cheap the promotion is being at the moment. UFC just doubled the impressive amount of money they make on broadcast rights. They’re making more money than ever. And on the even of this new era, they’re still nickel and diming their fighters to the point where they haven’t bothered to figure out what the new bonuses will be — two days before those bonuses will be awarded!
TKO is obviously a very busy company, but this is some sloppy business right there and it tells you how much of a priority fighter pay is to them.
