Chael Sonnen may be a world class mixed martial artist, but
his mouth tends to steal the show more often than not. UFC 148 was no different. Sonnen’s fight with Anderson Silva was touted
as one of the most anticipated fights in UFC history. Anticipated
being the key word.
Chael’s mouth accomplished some impressive feats leading up
to the fight. It got the normally quiet
and humble Anderson Silva to give a surprisingly quotable interview saying he
was going to break Sonnen’s teeth. It
got Silva to throw a vicious and now infamous shoulder… at the weigh-ins. It got Silva’s blood boiling so badly that
the two didn’t even do the customary touching of gloves at the onset of the
first round.
Could Chael’s mouth finally have done some good for the
fighter’s career in the octagon and throw the seldom-rattled Silva off his
game? Of course not. Sonnen looked
strong in the first round, probably taking it by a slight margin. The second round was classic Silva. About two minutes into the second round,
referee Yves Lavigne stopped the fight after a dominating flurry of punches and
knees. Silva’s TKO of Sonnen proved that
the only thing that may be able to stop Silva at this point is the 37 year olds
age.
To give some credit to the
American Gangster, Chael Sonnen has been able to point out two of Anderson Silva’s
very few weaknesses in their two fights against each other. 1)
Silva has the most trouble with wrestlers. It seems that if age doesn’t beat
Silva first, a wrestler will. 2) It is possible to get under Silva’s
skin (for better or worse). Judging by the result of Saturday night’s
fight, I wouldn’t advise the approach going forward.
The Dollars
The difference between the
appearance fees of the two fighters was a point that I found most
interesting. Naturally, Silva, the
middleweight champion going into the fight, earned more than the challenger Chael
Sonnen. The disparity however, is what
struck me as interesting. Silva brought
in $200,000 for showing up to the fight.
Sonnen’s contract seemed to be a bit more incentive laden with a $50,000
appearance fee and $50,000 bonus for winning the fight. Of course, the $250,000 in appearance fees
between the two pales in comparison to the reported $2.5 million that Tiger and
Phil brought in at this weekend’s Greenbriar Classic (and they both missed the cut!).
The total appearance fees between
the main event fighters Silva and Sonnen weren't even the highest of the
night. Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin
combined to bring in $375,000 in appearances fees for their battle and Tito
Ortiz’s “final fight” ($250,000 went to
Ortiz and $125,000 went to Griffin).
UFC 148 Fighter salary data is
from mmajunkie.com.
The Sense
Within the past few years, UFC has
been under some scrutiny from fans, fighters and the government from their
relatively low fighter pay outs. The
business model that the UFC uses for paying their fighters is heavily
structured around incentives. Fighters
fight for bonuses like Fight of the Night and KO of the Night. Bonuses are typically capped around
$70,000.
The UFC will be an extremely
interesting case study to follow into the future because they are blazing their
own trail. Mixed martial arts is most
often compared to boxing, but that’s like comparing basketball and football
because they are both played with balls.
Amazingly, the sport of mixed martial arts and the UFC are still growing in popularity. However, with growing popularity of a sport
comes growing popularity of fighters.
UFC is often complimented on its innovative social media
strategies. As fighters become more and
more visible, there has to come a point that fighters want to capitalize big
time on their popularity. Appearance
fees have to rise eventually. I wonder,
can the UFC business model absorb rising fighter dollar demands?
In boxing, a majority of the money
is with the few top fighters in the world (let’s
start a campaign Occupy Boxing). In
MMA, the money is dispersed relatively
even. Boxing and MMA are completely
different in the respect that boxing is one perfected discipline, while MMA is
a combination of disciplines. I strongly
believe that that inherent difference between boxing and MMA, is why the money
will always stay relatively evenly dispersed.
Why? It is tougher for one person
to dominate long enough to make the type of name for them that would command $1
million plus appearance fees. There are
many more factors to success in mixed martial arts.
Given the UFC’s global business
approach, social media presence and their plethora of unique
sponsorship/branding opportunities, the Zuffa-owned company is constantly
growing. Appearance fees for fighters
will more than likely be growing in the next 3-5 years with the increasing
visibility of the sport and personalities alike. Even though there is the stiff competition that comes
naturally to mixed martial arts, is that competition strong enough to retard
the growth of fighter appearance fees so that the UFC can absorb the costs? With the uniqueness of UFC’s product and the
tremendous platform they provide in the sports business world, one would have
to think so.
Anderson Silva is one of the few
fighters that have been able to build a big name for himself in the UFC. He kept held onto his middleweight championship
belt with a win over Chael Sonnen. Keep
in mind that Silva, possibly the best pound for pound fighter on the planet,
did not even have the highest appearance fee of the UFC 148 fighters. As the UFC evolves, the model for paying the
fighters will evolve as well. Right now the
UFC uses contracts with heavy incentives.
When will the fighters’ cries for more guaranteed money be
answered? Only time will tell.
UFC 148 Business Notes
According to ESPN.com, UFC 148:
Silva vs. Sonnen 2 grossed $6.5 in ticket sales which makes it the highest
grossed UFC event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and also puts the event among
the top 35 boxing gross gates in the state of Nevada’s history.
Another salary note, according to
mmajunkie.com, Cung Le earned $150,000 for his appearance while his opponent,
Patrick Cote earned $21,000 for his appearance with a $21,000 bonus for winning
(he lost).
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