Is the UFC screwing Nate Diaz?

Nate Diaz was making $50K per fight to show with another $50K to win, when he fought Benson Henderson.

Then the UFC dropped him down to $15K per fight to show and another $15K to win.

That means, even if he wins his fights, he receives $70K less per fight.

What should Nate do?  Should he simply fight his best and when his contract runs out, demand his salary be restored to his former $50K or not sign?  That is what I would recommend if I were his manager or agent.

Here is some background a to how and why he got his salary cut.  

http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/5/17/4337546/morning-report-ufc-dana-white-nate-diaz-suspended-cut-fined-bryan-caraway-pay-healy

Nate's manager, Mike Kogan said, "Cause I suck as a manager."

Is the UFC taking unfair advantage of Nate?  Is Nate being screwed financially by the UFC?

If you think he is, up-vote this post.  If you think Nate is not being taken advantage of, down-vote this post.

* Edited at 03.31.2014, 2:54 PM ET *

" I will slap the next person who ******* about fighter pay, go get your ******' shine boxes out for a better cause. "


Come at me then because UFC fighter pay is disgusting, for the largest org in the sport they pay their fighters **** compared to other top sports leagues and pay such a small % of the what they make to the fighters that earn them that money. 60/60 is good for an elite athlete in the sport? He has been with the UFC forever, is a top 10 guy, fought for the title, was on TUF, and is one of their most known guys. Lets say he fights 3 times a year, if he wins all 3 he makes around 360k plus sponsorship money. The lowest end players in the MLB and NFL that ride the bench make 3 times that and they don't even have to play. The lowest end fighters in the UFC make what 8/8? So if they fight 3 times a year and win all 3 times they make 48k plus sponsorship money, ew.


MMA is one of the most dangerous sports, ******* pay the fighters.

.

* Edited at 04.09.2014, 11:24 AM ET *

Nate Diaz is screwing Nate Diaz

Forbes values the NFL at $35 Billion dollars. In a recent interview Dana abashedly valued the UFC at $3.5 Billion, even if that rediculously high valuation is true how in the hell can an organization valued at 1/10th of the NFL pay similar salaries? The revenue is not there. If the UFC paid out 50% of it's revenue to fighters right now, like the big sports leagues do, then where does the money for company growth come from? How do they continue to build the brand at the staggering pace they've done for the past decade? Give it a few decades and I'm sure we will get to see the fighters make absurdly large salaries that we regular folks love to "ooh" and "ahh" over. The average player in the NFL in 1970, inflation adjusted, had a salary of $147,000. The NFL was founded in 1920, it took 50 years to establish and build its brand to that level.  

* Edited at 04.09.2014, 11:49 AM ET *

Cal knocked it out of the park

The UFC can definitely afford to pay their fighters a lot better though, they can cheat over guys now just so guys decades from now can make big money? Who's to say the sport is even around that long from now? They still make chump change for putting their health and well being on the line.

It is kind of silly when you see Dana White & Co. on private jets, etc. They are definitely the ones reaping the benefits, not the fighters. If what Dana White said is true in @cal's post, I think Fertitta's bought it for 1 or 2 million in the 90s according to that 20th anv show where they go over the history of the UFC. 

The NFL isn't paying the players salaries though. The team owners are. The UFC as a whole is valued at 3.5 Billion which means if the Fertitas wanna sell, 3.5 billion would be around the asking price. Their revenue isn't 3.5 billion dollars. Which isn't outrageous. But the UFC has to pay all 400-500 fighters. And there is no limit to how much they can pay fighters. 

An NFL team has 53 players and that's up to a team to pay him. Under the salary cap of course. This year it is 133 million dollars per team. But some teams, like the Raiders, only have a $60M payroll.

I'm always on the side of the fighters, but I will say this. There is a misconception that all pro athletes are supposed to be paid millions. In reality, those millions are a byproduct of the sport's success.

MMA is still a fledgling sport. They aren't near the big 4 North American sports, so smaller salaries are going to be something fighters have to deal with until the sport grows.

On a semi-related note. If the UFC is dropping top 10 fighters because they're too "expensive" or "not worth their value", that probably means they are looking to save money, which could mean that they aren't making money hand over fist as we would like to believe.

The million dollar question is: is the the UFC just being cheap? Or are they just not making as much money as we think they are?

* Edited at 04.09.2014, 1:59 PM ET *

lol nate diaz isnt getting screwed. nate diaz is a huge dummy. 

I don't think they're being cheap, I think that their business strategy makes it harder to pay the fighters. They have an inflated roster of 400-500 fighters (who at least 20-30% of the aren't even close to what used to be "UFC level"). **** they've got 184(!!!) signed fighters in the 155 and 170 divisions combined. Do you even. grasp that number? It's absurd.

Their strategy is, bring s ****load in, pay them peanuts while you're seeing if they can hack it and invest in those that have a future and star power. Fighters who everyone says are boring and have no immediate title implications don't align with that strategy, since signing a ****load of fighters to 4 fight contracts and then paying them the whole thing after cutting them starts to mount up pretty fast.

So basically, as a strategy, most of their fighters are more like cattle-head than that personal "partnership" Dana used to boast about until they become "worthwhile". Only the top 20-30 (this number may be exaggerated to prove a point, but you get the main idea) of each of the larger division and top 10-15 of the smaller divisions can call themselves "real" UFC fighters. The rest are in the UFC "development league" and are payed accordingly (same reason a prelim guys needs to do something really spectacular to snag one of the OTN bonuses while a main card guys just needs to finish in a more spectacular fashion than the other main card guys).

The best thing that can happen is one or two other promotions getting big enough to snag some big names off them and creating a more competitive market, though the down side of that is we may find ourselves with more Pacquiao/Mayweather situations if that happens because we'd then have two guys on different promotions both maybe the best that'll never come to a true agreement on how/where/when/under who they fight each other.

All that said, it's their business and they can do that, but they REALLY need to stop making it hard for the fighters to make money elsewhere. The sponsorship fee (which is absurdly high) for instance, I mean, you wanna pay Johnny "ranked 71 in the division" Nobody 4k/4k, sure thing, but ******* let the dude get some cheese off a company that would gladly pay him 20k to put their name on his shorts for a UFC prelim walkout, but ain't never shelling out that AND the 100k sponsor fee. I agree that the UFC is the stage that makes that sponsorship higher, but would it be so big a stage without the fighters? They need to remember that because they've been pushing how far their monopoly-leverage can go pretty much these past couple of years and if they cross a line it might blow up in their faces.

* Edited at 04.09.2014, 2:21 PM ET *

I agree with you Yoss that this strategy isn't working. I also think you have it right when you say that signing all these fighters that probably don't deserve it is to see how far they can stretch their power in the MMA world.

I think right now, their goal is to put on as many shows as possible to gain exposure with casual or non MMA fans. I don't think that strategy is working because instead of stacked cards, we're getting "meh" cards. In what world does Gyu Lim, Costa Phillipou and Rafael Natal headline a card. We're seeing many cards being headlined by fighters that didn't even used to make the main card of a PPV.

Remember when everyone was saying "too many cards is why everyone is injured"? That was ********, but it may be the reason why UFC fighters don't get paid very much. There's only so many dollars allocated to fighter pay.

BUT you have to ask. Is MMA better off paying the big names more money or paying out lower wages and giving the little guys a better chance of making it?

You can also make the argument that the UFC exposure for some of these fighters is priceless. If you have 3 UFC fights against average opponents and you go 1-2, you can say you fought for the UFC and now a regional promotion will sign you immediately. So getting an 8/8 is probably worth more in the long run even after you get cut.

UFC pay is ****, the problem is that they got a lot of people and fighters thinking that 60/60k is a good ******* pay, because most fighters are not making more than 15/15 so 60/60 sounds like a pretty good ******* deal until you find out the UFC is a billion dollar company.

The Dallas cowboys are worth 2.3 billion dollars and are at the most valuable NFL team, their salary cap is 98,074,737 dollars. The UFC worth is estimated in 2.5 billion, if they spent the same salary cap as the Cowboys divided in their 500 fighters Dana  claims they have, each one of them would be paid 196,149k in a year that´s  65, 383k per fight assuming they´d fight 3 times a year ( which a LOT of them won´t do), and the vast majority of the 500(?) UFC fighters don´t earn.

if the same money were to be spent in 400 fighters which they claimed they had  last year each one would recieve 245,186 K a year that´s  81,728 per fight and the UFC still would be making as much or even more money that the Cowboys, the difference being that the UFC can always make more cards and make more money they still have a LOT of room to grow while the Cowboys are limited to the NFL season.

btw Dana´s salary is 15,000,000$ a year

 

I think that nate should have won some fights and then talk about money

If you dont like the contract don't sign it. Pretty ****** simple

Yeah... I think the wage is ******, but I guess you're right they should think about that before signing. But I guess it's hard to say no when the contract is there and you have no leverage to bargain for more money.

People are saying Nate should get more money cause of his "status" and because he puts on entertaining fights. As far as his status, he's barely a top 10 fighter anymore. And if guys who are entertaining should be paid more, how come guys like Chris Lytle, Donald Cerrone, Ian McCall never got big pay raises? Their fights are always entertaining.

I like talk about the fighters it make good post

the NFL is being discussed here and a great thing there is that they share the pie.
they take away something like 2 Billion for the owners, but the rest of it is split 50-50 for owners and players.

if the UFC did that, i would say these guys would be payed way more.

@Cthulu 

I'm not using the NFL as an example of how athletes should be handled I only used it as reference because of the income of the team and the budget, they spent on salaries, if you read my post you'll see that I pointed out that if the UFC spent the same money on salaries as the cowboys do (whose net worth is in the same ballpark as the UFC) a fighter should make around from 196k to 264k depending of the UFC roster size nobody said anything about anyone needing 20 millions