The UFC signed a massive $7.7 billion deal to move from ESPN to Paramount in 2026, but there are still plenty of questions remaining about how that huge increase in revenue might actually benefit the fighters.
Before the ink could dry on the contracts, UFC CEO Dana White was fielding questions about fighter pay and how that affects the athletes after the company more than doubled its revenue from the upcoming broadcast rights deal. White didn’t mention any specifics, although he promised that post-fight bonuses would definitely increase from the standard $50,000 handed out at every event, but no further details were revealed.
Addressing fighter pay concerns with this new broadcast rights deal, TKO Group Holdings president and COO Mark Shapiro vowed that athletes are going to enjoy the fruits of this lucrative new contract the same as investors watching the company’s bottom line.
“We’re running a pretty lean cost structure, and in that cost structure is fighter pay,” Shapiro said during the Goldman-Sachs Communacopia and Technology conference. “We’re going to continue to do right by our fighters and our superstars.
“The cream of the crop will be paid the premium dollars. When we do deals like this, we don’t hoard that money. We invest in the product.”
Based on records revealed during a pair of antitrust lawsuits filed against the UFC by current and former fighters, the company typically pays out between 16 and 20 percent of the total revenue when it comes to money going back to the athletes.
That’s a dramatic difference from most major sports leagues, where athletes in the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball typically take home around 50 percent of the revenue earned by the leagues.
When it came to potential pay increases for fighters in the UFC after the new $7.7 billion deal with Paramount, Shapiro didn’t offer any numbers or percentages but he promised athletes under the TKO umbrella are still earning more money than with any other combat sports promotion.
“We’re going to share as much as it makes sense with the stars of both leagues,” Shapiro said, referring to UFC and WWE. “We will be very competitive. We are very competitive. We pay more than any other competitor we have in the combat sports space, and we know why we’re here. It’s a team effort. It’s our brand. It’s the work that Dana White does and the WWE side; it’s the creative force that Triple H is. It’s the strategy that Nick Khan drives. It’s ultimately the hard work put in by our crews. Remember, we’re doing a lot of fights per week. Monday Night Raw, you’ve got NXT on Tuesday night, you’ve got a Friday night Smackdown, you’ve got a UFC fight, and sometimes you have a [premium live event] or a numbered [UFC] event. These are a lot of events to put down. There’s no breaks in this company. It’s 52 weeks a year.
“So we have to pay for performance in terms of our people, and the same goes for our fighters and superstars. You shouldn’t expect anything out of the ordinary. It’s a run rate for us, but we’re focused on it.”
Shapiro acknowledged there are outliers when it comes to UFC pay, and those athletes are definitely earning more than others, but that just comes with the territory for superstars driving ratings and ticket sales.
“Yes, you’ll get some of those Conor McGregors if you will that really move the needle or Jon Jones that get paid a little more but they deliver more in return,” Shapiro said. “It’s a scale and it’s a formula and we’re very transparent about it with our fighters and our superstars.”
UFC CEO Dana White also fired back at the notion that the organization falls woefully behind other combat sports like boxing when it comes to paying the athletes.
As White prepares to embark on his first official show as a boxing promoter on Saturday for the Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford fight, the longtime UFC boss says fighters in his company are well compensated, but especially compared to the skewed way only the absolute top boxers in the world earn a hefty paycheck.
“There’s always this talk that there’s this huge pay discrepancy between boxing and MMA, which is total bullshit,” White told Ring Magazine. “We have guys that would be considered journeymen in the UFC that make millions of dollars. The money’s just spread out amongst the fighters better. Then you have the guys that really matter, like the Conor McGregors, the Ronda Rouseys. Even a woman came in and was the highest-paid fighter at the time. You eat what you kill here in the UFC.
“I think this [new boxing promotion] is going to create a lot of opportunities for young, up-and-coming guys that would be making a couple grand for some obscure title fight, and with simpler weight classes, you’ll actually know some of these champions now and know who they are and hopefully care.”
